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Canada oiloil wellop-edpension fundphiladelphiaprecedentprogressive commentatorsprosecutorspublic healthrreal price of oilrefcoreleasereportingreviewssafety standardssan francisco sentinelsarah portillascott pelleysenatesettlementsexshare priceshootingshort notessierra clubsociopathspiesspy camerastate departmentstock marketstockholderssworn testimonytax-free bondsted boutrostime magazinetphtrade preferencestragedytrialstribunalunicefusccbventilatorvibevictimwashington timeswhistleblowerwhite housewhoresThe Chevron PitA blog maintained by the team working to hold
oil giant Chevron accountable for its human rights
and environmental abuses in Ecuadorhttp://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Admin)Blogger444125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-6107116806866116352Mon, 31 Oct 2016 19:39:00 +00002016-10-31T15:39:00.008-04:00Exxon Campaign Against Environmental Groups and AG Offices Eerily Similar To Chevron's Against Ecuadorian IndigenousReposted from <a href="https://medium.com/@KarenHinton/big-oil-plays-big-victim-in-big-ways-bae822627862#.ri4pcal02" target="_blank"><i>Medium</i></a>.<br /><br />Exxon and Chevron have something in common other than oil these days. They both are playing big victims in big ways to distract from their environmental wrongdoing.<br /><br />These gigantic companies are arguing in court that separate but similar “illegal conspiracies” against them are underway by groups of environmentalists, states attorneys general, trial lawyers and liberal-leaning advocates.<br /><br />Chevron says it’s being “victimized” by a group of impoverished Ecuadorian indigenous peoples and their lawyers who won a historic $9.5 billion judgment for water and soil contamination in the Ecuador rainforest and want Chevron to pay up now, after 23 years of litigation.<br /><br /><div style="color: #999999; font-size: 12px; text-align: center;"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*x4r-TCoCGfKA3qrmYGkoTA.jpeg" style="height: auto; width: 100%;" /><br />Ecuadorian women and their children living in the rainforest who Chevron says are “conspiring” against the oil giant in collusion with their lawyers and environmental groups, like Amazon Watch — Photo by Lou Dematteis</div><br /><b>Note:</b> Chevron demanded the historic court case be tried in Ecuador, in the first place, and accepted jurisdiction there. Three levels of Ecuador’s courts have upheld the damage award, based on no fewer than 106 technical evidentiary reports submitted to the court.<br /><blockquote>But, like Donald Trump who refuses to accept the outcome of the presidential election<b class="markup--strong markup--blockquote-strong"> unless he wins</b>, Chevron refuses to pay the environmental judgment.</blockquote>That’s after the company stripped its assets from Ecuador during the trial, forcing the Ecuadorians — who have suffered from decades of pollution — to file a <a data-href="http://business.financialpost.com/news/energy/chevron-canada-not-on-hook-for-9-5-billion-judgment-because-distinct-and-separate-from-u-s-parent-lawyers-say" href="http://business.financialpost.com/news/energy/chevron-canada-not-on-hook-for-9-5-billion-judgment-because-distinct-and-separate-from-u-s-parent-lawyers-say" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">lawsuit in Canada</a> to seize company assets there as payment for the Ecuador judgment.<br />Meanwhile, Exxon would have us believe environmental groups and states attorneys general are colluding — in violation of their 1st, 4th and 15th Amendment rights — by demanding to know what Exxon knew about <a data-href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/10/26/in-a-loss-for-exxonmobil-ny-supreme-court-orders-oil-giant-to-produce-climate-documents/?utm_term=.edd582c69304" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/10/26/in-a-loss-for-exxonmobil-ny-supreme-court-orders-oil-giant-to-produce-climate-documents/?utm_term=.edd582c69304" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">climate change in the 1970s but intentionally kept from shareholders and the public</a>. They are asking questions about possible securities law violations based on Exxon’s obvious deceptions about global warming. Check out one of numerous internal admissions kept from shareholders.<br /><br /><div style="color: #999999; font-size: 12px; text-align: center;"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*WM5kFATwud6o4a5lmAOYJA.jpeg" style="height: auto; width: 100%;" /></div><br />While Chevron wrote the “victim” playbook, Exxon is taking pages from it. Examples of the eerily similar campaigns:<br /><br /><h2>Similar Message</h2><br />Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers used this line in recent news coverage to describe its victimization: <a data-href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/exxonmobil-rockefellers-face-off-climate-battle-074649818.html" href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/exxonmobil-rockefellers-face-off-climate-battle-074649818.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">“This is a conspiracy to deliberately misrepresent the company’s position and to tear down the company.”</a><br /><br />Chevron’s main lawyer Randy Mastro — known for “exonerating” NJ Governor Chris Christie in the Bridgegate scandal — has accused the Ecuadorians and their lawyers of a “criminal conspiracy” and said, if successful, <a data-href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-10-16/chevrons-19-billion-day-in-court" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-10-16/chevrons-19-billion-day-in-court" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">“it will be open season on U.S. corporations.”</a><br /><br /><h2>Similar Tactics</h2><br />Chevron has by its own admission sought <a data-href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2009-03-26-gidez-email-re-demonize-donziger.pdf" href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2009-03-26-gidez-email-re-demonize-donziger.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">to demonize</a> one of the Ecuadorians’ lawyers, Steven Donziger. In much the same way, Exxon is demonizing the motivations of state attorneys general.<br /><br />Exxon has recruited U.S. Congressman Lamar Smith to conduct hearings on the investigation launched by state attorney generals. As Chairman of the House Science Committee, the Texas lawmaker <a data-href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14102016/sec-refuses-comply-lamar-smith-subpeona-over-exxon-probe-mary-jo-white" href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14102016/sec-refuses-comply-lamar-smith-subpeona-over-exxon-probe-mary-jo-white" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">has subpoenaed the environmental groups and Attorneys General in New York and Massachusetts</a> for all sorts of documents as an obvious form of harrassment.<br /><br />Chevron played a similar <a data-href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2005/1130-chevron-lobbying-us-congress-to-interfere-with-ecuador-judicial-process-warn-indigenous-leaders" href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2005/1130-chevron-lobbying-us-congress-to-interfere-with-ecuador-judicial-process-warn-indigenous-leaders" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">card</a> over ten years ago, lobbying Congress to end Ecuador’s trade preferences in retaliation for “allowing” the Ecuadorians to file a lawsuit against the oil giant. Had Congress agreed, Ecuador would have lost thousands of jobs for its low-income residents. A Chevron lobbyist told Newsweek the U.S. <a data-href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2008/0726-newsweek-chevrons-16-billion-problem" href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2008/0726-newsweek-chevrons-16-billion-problem" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">“…can’t let little countries screw around with big companies like this — companies that have made big investments around the world.”</a><br /><br /><h2>Similar Legal Strategy</h2><br />Chevron countersued the Ecuadorians and their lawyers claiming their entire case was a “sham” and that they were trying to extort money from the company.<br /><br />In turn, Exxon <a data-href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/17102016/exxonmobil-climate-change-research-seeks-block-new-york-attorney-general-investigation-subpeona-eric-schneiderman" href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/17102016/exxonmobil-climate-change-research-seeks-block-new-york-attorney-general-investigation-subpeona-eric-schneiderman" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">took the AGs and the environmentalists to court</a>.<br /><br />Here’s the reality on these two so-called “conspiracies”.<br /><br />When it became clear the Ecuadorians would win their long court battle in Ecuador, Chevron <a data-href="http://www.chevrontoxico.com" href="http://www.chevrontoxico.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">unveiled an intimidation campaign in the U.S.</a> designed to discredit the Ecuadorians and their lawyers, delay the enforcement of the Ecuador judgment and deceive the public and financial markets about what happened in the South American country.<br /><br /><a data-href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35294-Chevron-Using-60-Law-Firms-and-2-000-Legal-Personnel-To-Evade-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability-Company-Reports" href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35294-Chevron-Using-60-Law-Firms-and-2-000-Legal-Personnel-To-Evade-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability-Company-Reports" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">With over 2,000 lawyers and legal assistants</a>, at least six major public relations firms and as many, if not more, lobbying firms in tow, Chevron filed a retaliatory, RICO lawsuit for extortion and bribery against the Ecuadorians and launched a coast-to-coast PR slander campaign against them and their lawyers.<br /><br />Now comes Exxon with a similar campaign against 350.org, Sierra Club, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Natural Resources Defense Council and 40 other well-known environmental and social justice groups, as well as the Attorney General.<br /><br />Exxon’s PR guru Suzanne McCarron told a Business Week reporter that the effort against Exxon “feels very orchestrated” and “we wanted to know who’s behind this thing.”<br /><br />Of course, it’s no secret — and never has been — who is behind it. All McCarron had to do was Google search “Exxon” and “climate change” and the people criticizing her company will appear. It’s absurd to believe the groups “behind this thing” don’t have constitutional rights to criticize and probe the actions and policies of a publicly-traded company.<br /><br />But, like Chevron, if Exxon could build a different narrative — one of intrigue, conspiracies, and collusion — then the leaders of the “conspiracy” could be discredited and demonized, just as Chevron tried to do to the <a data-href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2009-03-26-gidez-email-re-demonize-donziger.pdf" href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2009-03-26-gidez-email-re-demonize-donziger.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">lawyers for the Ecuadorian villagers</a>.<br /><br />“Exxon has hired an army of lawyers to try and distract from the real story here: that they lied about their knowledge of climate change for decades,” said 350.org communications director Jamie Henn. “Delay and deceit.”<br /><br />“Exxon’s filing leaves out the fact that they have spent millions of dollars funding misinformation campaigns, faux think tanks, and the elections of climate deniers. They’re reacting this way because they know the stakes of this investigation are enormous.”<br /><br />The Ecuadorians could tell the U.S. environmental groups a thing or two about delay, deceit, and distractions.<br /><br /><b>Delay:</b> 23 years of litigation in U.S., Ecuadorian and now Canadian courts, thanks to the litigious Chevron and its bottomless pit of money for lawyers.<br /><br /><div style="color: #999999; font-size: 12px; text-align: center;"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/l618BhvWkz4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />Another example of Chevron’s deceit and deception in Ecuador rainforest.</div><br /><b>Deceit:</b> Chevron’s paying a witness over $2 million in cash and benefits to testify falsely against the Ecuadorians that they bribed a sitting judge and wrote the judgment for him. The $2 million is four times the amount of the false bribery claim. Chevron’s lawyer Mastro and his team <a data-href="https://medium.com/@KarenHinton/chevrons-elephant-in-the-room-3fb25807073b#.i1rneuf2v" href="https://medium.com/@KarenHinton/chevrons-elephant-in-the-room-3fb25807073b#.i1rneuf2v" target="_blank">spent 53 days “coaching” the witness to lie.</a><br /><br /><b>Distractions:</b> Filing lawsuits in dozens of jurisdictions to draw attention away from the pollution in Ecuador and drain the Ecuadorians of any money for lawyers so they are not able to enforce the judgment that three layers of appellate courts in Ecuador have upheld.<br /><br />Despite the delays, deceit and distractions, the Ecuadorians are still fighting Chevron and could end up collecting the full amount of their judgment in Canada, where the country’s Supreme Court backed them in a unanimous procedural decision in 2015.<br /><br />Time will tell. Chevron as well as Exxon should look around and see how the world is changing. Time is running out for both climate change deniers and corporate polluters.http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2016/10/exxon-campaign-against-environmental.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (The Blog Team)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-3272168911954201621Mon, 19 Sep 2016 22:07:00 +00002016-09-19T18:07:55.715-04:00Calling Chevron's Bluff<img alt="The courthouse in Canada" src="https://amazonwatch.org/assets/images/thumbs/2016/0919-calling-chevrons-bluff.jpg" style="max-width: 100%;" /><br /><br />Reposted from <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2016/0919-calling-chevrons-bluff" target="_blank"><i>Eye on the Amazon</i></a>.<br /><br />One of the worst oil-related disasters in history occurred when Texaco, later purchased by oil giant Chevron, <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/" target="_blank">deliberately dumped 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into the Ecuadorian Amazon</a> over the course of decades. The resulting health crisis in the rainforest home of 30,000 Amazonian inhabitants continues to this day. A $40 million deal with the government of Ecuador in 1995 resulted in a <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/the-chevron-tapes-video-shows-oil-giant-allegedly-covering-up-amazon-contamination" target="_blank">sham remediation</a>, after which Texaco publicly washed its hands of the affair. <br /><br />Not satisfied with such an egregious lack of justice, the affected communities have continued to demand accountability, taking their case all the way to the Ecuadorian Supreme Court, and winning: in 2011 an Ecuadorian judge found Chevron liable for $9.5 billion in damages, a ruling upheld by the Supreme Court. Instead of doing the right thing, however, Chevron took its assets and fled from Ecuador, and continues to use its corporate might to avoid accountability. Nonetheless, the communities and their allies around the world haven't given up the quest for justice. <br /><br /><h2>The quest continues</h2><br /><a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2016/0912-day-one-of-chevrons-hell-freezes-over-tour" target="_blank">Amazon Watch spent four days last week in a courthouse in Toronto</a> to witness the <a href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/09/14/winter-is-coming-as-chevron-fights-ecuadoreans-in-canada.htm" target="_blank">latest, and hopefully last, chapter in this epic quest for justice</a>. <br /><br />When Chevron fled Ecuador after the $9.5 billion judgement against it, the affected communities turned to the courts in Brazil, Argentina and Canada to hold the company accountable, seeking summary judgments allowing the seizure of the assets of Chevron subsidiaries in order to pay for the Ecuador judgement.<br /><br />Backed by a <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ecuadorians-can-sue-chevron-in-canada-supreme-court-rules/article26225413/" target="_blank">unanimous 2015 decision from Canada's Supreme Court</a> giving a green light for the Ecuadorians to sue Chevron in Canada, last week's trial is an important step in the quest for justice. The principal issue before the court was whether to grant the <a href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Ecuadoreans-Go-to-Canada-to-Collect-Billions-from-Chevron-20160912-0017.html" target="_blank">Ecuadorian's request for access to Chevron Canada's assets to cover the $9.5 billion judgement</a>, versus Chevron's defense motion to summarily dismiss the entire claim. The Ecuadorians base their plea on the massive evidence of contamination in Ecuador and a $9.5 billion verdict issued in Ecuador and upheld by its highest court. Chevron claims the verdict itself is fraudulent, basing this claim on the fact that it managed to win a <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2015/0428-the-adventures-of-donny-rico" target="_blank">retaliatory RICO (racketeering) lawsuit</a> in the US by alleging bribery, corruption, and a "ghostwritten" judgment by the Ecuadorian court.<br /><br />Also at issue is what lawyers call "piercing the corporate veil" of hidden parent-subsidiary relationships in order to hold Chevron Canada – a wholly owned subsidiary of Chevron Corp. – liable for the actions and its parent company. The Ecuadorians assert that their action doesn't really hold Chevron Canada responsible, it simply seeks to hold Chevron accountable by seizing assets it controls in Canada through what is actually nothing more than a holding company. This is an important issue for corporate accountability advocates everywhere, because corporations around the world attempt to hide behind the corporate veil. <br /><br />Therefore, Ontario Superior Court Judge Glenn Hainey will have to decide whether to grant a summary judgement in favor of either the Ecuadorians or Chevron, or to send the case to trial to examine in depth the claims made by both sides.<br /><br />This last option was welcomed by the lawyer for the Ecuadorians, Alan Lenczner, who encouraged Judge Hainey to give him the opportunity to demonstrate the falsehood of Chevron's claims of bribery and a ghostwritten judgement in Ecuador, and the resulting invalidity of the US RICO decision. <br /><br />Lenczner's offer provoked quite a reaction from Chevron's legal team in the courtroom (over a dozen US and Canadian lawyers), but he persisted. "That's the issue and what should be tried here. If they're right and have confidence in that, then they can show you and... well then, we lose," Lenczner continued emphatically. "We should have a trial on the ghostwriting! Here's how a trial would go. I will stand up and file a judgment which will be valid until you [the judge] set it aside. Chevron will then bring on their defense and call <a href="https://youtu.be/U_kAifa3q4c" target="_blank">Guerra [Chevron's “witness” to the alleged bribery]</a>... They won't call Guerra, they're afraid to," concluded Lenczner. By doing so he called their bluff; <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2016/0919-in-canada-enforcement-trial-ecuadorians-say-bring-on-chevrons-corrupt-witness" target="_blank">Chevron's RICO verdict is predicated on the testimony of a corrupt witness, who has since admitted he lied in exchange for over $2 million from Chevron.<br /></a><br />To explain the details of this sordid tale and just how Chevron has apparently backed itself into a seemingly impossible corner, we must return to the beginning of the story and detail more about Chevron's efforts to escape justice at all costs.<br /><br /><h2>The history</h2><br />While <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/texacoadmitstodumping.pdf" target="_blank">Texaco long since admitted to dumping the toxic waste as a cost-saving measure</a>, and is therefore responsible (as the sole operator) for the contamination, Chevron, since its purchase of Texaco, has itself dumped billions of dollars into fighting to avoid a full cleanup, even while knowing full well it could never win the case based on the merits. <br /><br />The number of legal hoops that Chevron has jumped through to avoid accountability are impressive. When the communities brought their first claim against Texaco, in New York, Texaco spent a decade arguing that Ecuador was the proper venue for the case. It eventually won that argument, but then on the first day of the trial in Ecuador objected to the entire case and claimed it shouldn't be there either. It proceeded to drag out this second trial another eight years and used <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2014/07/how-chevron-cheated-ecuadors-courts.html" target="_blank">every dirty trick in the book</a> to throw wrenches in the wheel of justice.<br /><br />As the case was finally coming to an end in Ecuador, leaked internal memos revealed Chevron's plan to <a href="http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/meet-the-lawyer-chevron-tried-to-destroy-112" target="_blank">vilify the Ecuadorians, their lawyers and the entire Ecuadorian judicial system</a>, as an attempt to invalidate in the court of public opinion any judgement that would be issued against it. Sparing no expense, the company waged a scorched earth legal strategy and hit pay-dirt when US Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan suggested Chevron file a RICO (racketeering) suit in the US; Kaplan made his suggestion based primarily off doctored outtake clips from the documentary <i>Crude</i>. <br /><br />Kaplan's court was exactly what Chevron desperately needed – a friendly judge thousands of miles away from the actual events in the Amazon who didn't read Spanish and expressed public disdain for the Ecuadorians before his trial even began. Most importantly for Chevron, Kaplan would not even allow the word "contamination" in his courtroom, let alone evidence of the actual crime of Chevron's toxic waste. Further, Kaplan's willingness to grant any request of Chevron's lawyers at Gibson Dunn &amp; Crutcher meant the widespread issuing of subpoenas of a long list of "non party co-conspirators" – a <a href="https://www.earthrights.org/blog/corporate-rights-or-human-rights" target="_blank">tactic to intimidate and harass anyone critical of Chevron</a> in support of the Ecuadorians (<a href="https://www.earthrights.org/legal/victory-judge-thwarts-chevrons-attempt-open-amazon-watchs-confidential-files" target="_blank">including Amazon Watch</a>).<br /><br />The underlying claims made by Chevron are that the Ecuadorian verdict was obtained by fraud committed by the Ecuadorian and US legal team led by Steven Donziger. Chevron claims that Ecuadorian Judge Alberto Guerra was offered a $500,000 bribe by the Ecuadorian's lawyers to ghostwrite the $9.5 billion judgment and give it to the presiding judge Nicolas Zambrano. The truth is none of that actually happened.<br /><br />In a <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2014/0325-chevrons-mockery-of-justice" target="_blank">mockery of justice</a>, <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2013/1126-the-truth-has-no-place-in-kaplans-court" target="_blank">Judge Lewis Kaplan accepted the testimony of Guerra</a>, even though it <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.mx/2013/10/donziger-ecuadorians-file-motion-to.html" target="_blank">came to light during the trial that Guerra received millions of dollars from Chevron to testify</a> and had been coached for 57 days before the trial. Guerra himself had already lost his position as a judge because he had admitted to taking at least 20 bribes in other cases, some for as low as $200. Kaplan even acknowledged that Guerra was not a very credible witness, but decided to believe him in this instance. This despite the fact that Guerra was unable to produce the evidence he claimed he had of the verdict he supposedly wrote for Zambrano, and that the details his story changed several times during his testimony. <br /><br />Few people know that the way Chevron found out that Guerra was corrupt in the first place was because, as he admitted during the RICO trial, he approached Chevron looking for a bribe. Chevron claims it turned him down, but curiously it didn't report the incident to anyone. Ultimately, Guerra should never have been permitted to take the stand, but Kaplan allowed it. After a trial <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2013/05/attorney-john-kekers-blistering.html" target="_blank">called a "Dickensian farce" by noted California Attorney John Keker</a>, Kaplan issued a 500-page verdict and blasted the Ecuadorians and their lawyers. He never claimed that Chevron was innocent of the environmental crimes in the Amazon, but he declared that the Ecuadorian judgment was unenforceable in the U.S. The Second Circuit Appeals Court inexplicably held up Kaplan's verdict a few months ago. And while the Ecuadorians' appeal to the Second Circuit was based on Chevron's misuse of the RICO statute and their lawyer Donziger vehemently contested the "facts" of Kaplan's ruling, Chevron's PR spin machine often succeeds in getting the mainstream media to not report on the facts of the case but only on the allegations of fraud. Nor has the media reported widely that Kaplan's RICO verdict offers no legal remedy for Chevron since no one has sought to enforce the case in the U.S.<br /><br />Nonetheless, things were looking bright for Chevron, even knowing that the Ecuadorian's lawyers will likely appeal Second Circuit decision. But soon, Chevron's strategy of legal shell games and forum shopping began to backfire. At the same time as the RICO case, Chevron filed a <a href="http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=5314" target="_blank">case against the government of Ecuador at the Hague under a bilateral trade agreement</a>. A panel of three judges were tasked with determining if Ecuador had offered Chevron adequate legal protection. A ruling in Chevron's favor could essentially end up forcing the government of Ecuador, and thus its taxpayers, to foot the bill for the cleanup. While this tribunal process offered no role for the actual affected people of Ecuador, but it did offer another opportunity for more evidence from Ecuador to see the light of day.<br /><br />After Kaplan had already issued his verdict, Chevron's "star witness" Guerra took the stand before the tribunal... and <a href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/12/01/chevron-concedes-errors-in-crucial-witness-testimony.htm" target="_blank">proceeded to recant his RICO testimony about the bribe he allegedly received from the Ecuadorians!</a> Furthermore, he admitted he came to no arrangement with Zambrano and he had no evidence of a ghostwritten judgement. Guerra also admitted that he told Chevron what they wanted to hear to get a bigger payout as <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/chevrons-star-witness-admits-to-lying-in-the-amazon-pollution-case" target="_blank">reported by <i>Vice News</i></a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>In testimony before the tribunal, Guerra admitted that at this point he tried to get more money from Chevron. "At some point, I said, well, why don't you add some zeroes to that amount, and then later on I said, 'I think it could be 50,000.'"</blockquote><br />In an even bigger blow to Chevron, the government of <a href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/04/16/secret-report-shoring-up-9-8b-verdict-against-chevron-unveiled.htm" target="_blank">Ecuador produced an expert forensic report of the computer of Judge Zambrano</a> proving the judgment was written over the course of four months and no external devices, nor pasted-in excerpts from Guerra were inserted into the judgment.<br /><br />The US Second Circuit Court of Appeals did not consider Guerra's new testimony nor the forensic report, but the court in Toronto might. And THAT brings us to this past week in Canada. <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2013/1031-you-get-what-you-pay-for-perjury-in-this-case" target="_blank">Chevron cannot afford to have Alberto Guerra get back on the stand.</a> Their lawyers are desperate to avoid that – so much so that they made an outrageous and false claim in the last few moments of the hearing stating that they "held transcripts of both Guerra's RICO and Tribunal testimonies side-by-side and there was no daylight between them." That appears to be a pretty desperate lie when Guerra stated in the Tribunal when referring to the RICO testimony, "<a href="https://news.vice.com/article/chevrons-star-witness-admits-to-lying-in-the-amazon-pollution-case" target="_blank">yes sir, I lied there.</a>" You could see a solar flare through that gaping hole.<br /><br />So now we wait, hopefully not too long, for Judge Hainey to decide. In the meantime, some Canadian journalists have already started to ask: "where is Alberto Guerra? Does anyone know?" Presumably he's still living somewhere in the US in the house Chevron bought for him and driving the car they gave him to the mall each week to spend some of the monthly stipend he still receives from his friends in San Ramon. We can't wait to see if he surfaces.<br /><br />We certainly hope someone does track Guerra down, because the Ecuadorian communities living in the midst of Chevron's deadly oil waste shouldn't have to wait a day longer. As their lawyer Lenczner said in closing, "this case calls for assistance not barriers. These people have been waiting more than 20 years." <br />http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2016/09/calling-chevrons-bluff.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (The Blog Team)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-3472952713559461391Thu, 15 Sep 2016 14:20:00 +00002016-09-16T10:20:56.882-04:00No Money, Power or Influence, But the Ecuadorians Are Still Here, Fighting Chevron<div style="text-align:center;font-size:12px;color:#999999"><img style="width:100%;height:auto" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*Mlbakogalmf_ZaHSZPT-Jg.jpeg" /><br /><br />A portrait of this Ecuadorian couple’s family members who died from cancer in a community contaminated by Chevron</div><br />Reposted from <a href="https://medium.com/@KarenHinton/no-money-power-or-influence-but-the-ecuadorians-are-still-here-fighting-chevron-cc6a41b02f7d#.iy75hxrvw" target="_blank"><i>Medium</i></a>.<br /><br />I am sitting now in Ontario Superior Court wondering how the hell I got here but also marveling at the fact.<br /><br />Over 23 years ago, 48 Ecuadorians sued Chevron for massive oil contamination in the Amazon rainforest.<br /><br />Nobody thought they would win. They may never see a dime from Chevron.<br /><br />But, like Celie (Whoopi Goldberg) said in <em>The Color Purple</em>, "I'm poor, black; I may even be ugly, but dear God! I'm here!"<br /><br />The Ecuadorians have no money; no power; no influence. But, they are still here, demanding justice.<br /><br /><div style="text-align:center;font-size:12px;color:#999999"><img style="width:100%;height:auto" src="https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*qCt4c1HYarWtXlzXEixP8Q.jpeg" /><br /><br />This Ecuadorian woman died from cancer not long after this photo was taken</div><br />The Ecuadorians are asking a Canadian court to enforce a $9.5 billion Ecuador judgment against Chevron for massive contamination since the oil giant sold all its assets there. I'm here to answer reporters' questions about the enforcement hearing.<br /><br />For three decades, Chevron's predecessor Texaco treated the Ecuadorians' homeland, the Amazon rainforest, like a trash dump, intentionally pumping 16 billion gallons of toxic water into streams used for drinking and storing left over crude in over 900 huge unlined oil pits that leached into soil and water.<br /><br />In 1993, the Ecuadorians sued Texaco in U.S. court. At Texaco's request, the court moved the case to Ecuador, and both Texaco and Chevron promised to abide by the Ecuador court's rulings. By 2013, three levels of Ecuador's judiciary had ruled against Chevron, affirming the $9.5 billion in damages.<br /><br />Meanwhile, Chevron refuses to pay, saying it will fight "until hell freezes over, and then we will fight it out on the ice."<br /><br />Given that indigenous peoples and the poor everywhere rarely have any pull with their governments and not enough money to pay for lawyers and lobbyists, they generally have been left to fend for themselves when the news media grows tired of their causes.<br /><br />The Ecuadorians, however, have refused to go away.<br /><br />They are still here, fighting for the justice that they deserve, beyond a shadow of a doubt.<br />http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2016/09/no-money-power-or-influence-but.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (The Blog Team)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-2231029145344302544Tue, 13 Sep 2016 21:29:00 +00002016-09-14T17:29:45.410-04:00Chevron's Elephant in the Room<h2>Oil Giant's 53-Day Fraud, Denying Ecuadorians Justice in Ecuador Contamination Case</h2><br />Reposted from <a href="https://medium.com/@KarenHinton/chevrons-elephant-in-the-room-3fb25807073b#.srfjas6av" target="_blank"><i>Medium</i></a>.<br /><br />Today an elephant is lurking in a Canadian court where a group of Ecuadorian indigenous are seeking to enforce a $9.5 billion Ecuador judgment against Chevron for one of the largest environmental disasters in history. (See <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="https://medium.com/@KarenHinton/chevron-once-again-spouts-tired-excuses-aka-lies-for-ignoring-toxic-mess-in-ecuador-b305320b265a#.hg61hrc3t" href="https://medium.com/@KarenHinton/chevron-once-again-spouts-tired-excuses-aka-lies-for-ignoring-toxic-mess-in-ecuador-b305320b265a#.hg61hrc3t" target="_blank">recent Medium piece</a>.)<br /><br />The elephant is Alberto Guerra, the witness Chevron "prepped" for 53 days to testify against the Ecuadorians and their lawyers on fraud and bribery charges brought by the oil company in a U.S. court to taint the Ecuador judgment. (<a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2014-07-02-donziger-brief.pdf" href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2014-07-02-donziger-brief.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">See page 61</a> and <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/10/26/transcriptDay4.pdf" href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/10/26/transcriptDay4.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">page 815</a>.)<br /><br />Problem is Guerra, an Ecuadorian, recently <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2015/1026-chevrons-star-witness-admits-to-lying-in-the-amazon-pollution-case" href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2015/1026-chevrons-star-witness-admits-to-lying-in-the-amazon-pollution-case" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">admitted he lied about the fraud</a>, after being paid at least $2 million for his testimony. (<a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/10/26/transcriptDay4.pdf" href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/10/26/transcriptDay4.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">See page 853</a>.)<br /><br />(By the way, 53 days is a lot of days. Not normal. <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2013-07-26-chemerinsky-declaration.pdf" href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2013-07-26-chemerinsky-declaration.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">$2 million isn't normal either</a>, and Chevron refuses to say if Guerra continues to be paid under a contract he negotiated {<a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/10/26/transcriptDay4.pdf" href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/10/26/transcriptDay4.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">pages 853–857</a>}, after being relocated by the oil giant with his family to the U.S.)<br /><br />Meanwhile, Guerra has backed Chevron up against the proverbial wall in a Toronto courtroom.<br /><br />Yesterday Chevron argued dryly for several hours that <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="http://business.financialpost.com/news/energy/chevron-canada-not-on-hook-for-9-5-billion-judgment-because-distinct-and-separate-from-u-s-parent-lawyers-say?__lsa=b87d-1c8e" href="http://business.financialpost.com/news/energy/chevron-canada-not-on-hook-for-9-5-billion-judgment-because-distinct-and-separate-from-u-s-parent-lawyers-say?__lsa=b87d-1c8e" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">"corporate separateness"</a> between Chevron Corporation and Chevron Canada blocks the Ecuadorians from seizing Chevron's assets and, as such, their enforcement case should be dismissed.<br /><br />The Ecuadorians' lawyer, Alan Lenczner, disagreed. <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="http://business.financialpost.com/news/energy/chevron-canada-not-on-hook-for-9-5-billion-judgment-because-distinct-and-separate-from-u-s-parent-lawyers-say?__lsa=b87d-1c8e" href="http://business.financialpost.com/news/energy/chevron-canada-not-on-hook-for-9-5-billion-judgment-because-distinct-and-separate-from-u-s-parent-lawyers-say?__lsa=b87d-1c8e" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">"The two are bound hand and foot"</a> as Chevron Canada must seek approval from Chevron Corporation to drill on land and make expensive purchases, for example. Lenczner plans to detail today how Chevron Canada received $10.5 billion from its parent, Chevron Corporation.<br /><br />(Chevron sold all its assets in Ecuador, forcing the Ecuadorians to obtain their damage award through enforcement proceedings in countries that do have Chevron assets, like Canada.)<br /><br />But, if Chevron's legal farce of bifurcation fails to win the day and the Canadian judge grants the Ecuadorians a trial to enforce, Chevron will have to explain why Guerra <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="http://www.ecuador.org/blog/?p=5314" href="http://www.ecuador.org/blog/?p=5314" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">recanted his incriminating testimony</a> only 13 months after U.S. Judge Lewis Kaplan bought Guerra's story hook, line and sinker.<br /><br />After obtaining a <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="http://www.ecuador.org/blog/?p=5314" href="http://www.ecuador.org/blog/?p=5314" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">transcript</a> of a related but secret arbitration proceeding between Chevron and the Government of Ecuador, the online news site <b>VICE </b>reported:<br /><br /><blockquote>"Guerra has now admitted that there is no evidence to corroborate allegations of a bribe or a ghostwritten judgment, and that large parts of his sworn testimony, used by Kaplan in the RICO case to block enforcement of the ruling against Chevron, were exaggerated and, in other cases, simply not true."</blockquote><br />Also see coverage by <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/10/26/ecuadorean-judge-backflips-on-explosive-testimony-for-chevron.htm" href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/10/26/ecuadorean-judge-backflips-on-explosive-testimony-for-chevron.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Courthouse News</a>.<br /><br />Here's a quick run-down on Guerra, a former Ecuador judge who admitted to taking bribes in 40 other, unrelated cases and got kicked off the court in 2009: (<a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="http://stevendonziger.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Defendants-motion-to-strike-testimony-of-Alberto-Guerra-Bastides.pdf" href="http://stevendonziger.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Defendants-motion-to-strike-testimony-of-Alberto-Guerra-Bastides.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">See page 2</a> of this legal brief.)<br /><br /><i>First,</i> by the end of the 53-day, Chevron inquisition, Guerra had changed his testimony three times, and the changes were not minor. (<a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2014-07-02-donziger-brief.pdf" href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2014-07-02-donziger-brief.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">See pages 55–57.</a>)<br /><br /><b>Story #1:</b> Guerra alleged the Ecuadorians' attorneys "ghostwrote" the judgment and hired Guerra to edit it, which he said he did on his home computer. But when Chevron couldn't find the judgment on his computer, Guerra recanted.<br /><br /><b>Story #2:</b> Actually, Guerra said, the verdict was on a flash drive that the judge gave him at the Quito airport. But when Chevron couldn't find the judgment on any flash drives, Guerra changed his story yet again.<br /><br /><b>Story #3:</b> Actually, Guerra said, he traveled to the jungle on a bus and edited the judgment there on a laptop owned by one of the Ecuadorian attorneys.<br /><br /><i>Second,</i> after clinching Chevron's win over the Ecuadorians in U.S. court, Guerra told yet a different story only a year or so later to arbitration lawyers for the Government of Ecuador. From the <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" data-href="http://www.ecuador.org/blog/?p=5314" href="http://www.ecuador.org/blog/?p=5314" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">transcript</a> that <b>VICE </b>obtained:<br /><br /><blockquote>"Can you recall how you tried to increase your negotiating position with the Chevron representatives?" a government lawyer asked Guerra.</blockquote><blockquote>"I must recognize that I did exaggerate about [some things], yes," said Guerra.</blockquote><blockquote>"When we are looking for a job, you say, how much experience do you have, and in fact you really don't have any experience, and you say, well, I have ten years of experience really. It's a situation just like that."</blockquote><blockquote>The lawyer asked: "And among the ways you tried to leverage your position was to falsely tell the Chevron representatives that the Plaintiffs had offered you $300,000; isn't that right?"</blockquote><blockquote>"Yes, sir. I lied there," Guerra responded. "I recognize it."</blockquote><br />With seemingly no shame whatsoever, Guerra described one of his first meetings with Chevron lawyers.<br /><br /><blockquote>"One of them took me by the arm and said, 'Look, look, look what's down there. We have $20,000 there.' Specifically, one of them was the one that led me to take a look at it. It was inside a safe."</blockquote><blockquote>"At some point, I said, well, why don't you add some zeroes to that amount, and then later on I said, 'I think it could be 50,000.'"</blockquote><br />Right then, Chevron should have adhered to Abraham Lincoln's sound advice about elephants.<br /><br />"When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run."<br /><br />Instead, Chevron's lawyers may soon have to corral their elephant back into court and explain why Guerra can't seem to get his stories straight &ndash; even after 53 days of prepping.<br /><br />For more details on Guerra and his sordid tales, see <a data-href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/karen-hinton" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/karen-hinton" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2016/09/chevrons-elephant-in-room.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (The Blog Team)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-7632335743298794401Mon, 12 Sep 2016 21:23:00 +00002016-09-12T17:35:22.438-04:00The Beginning of the End: Day One of Chevron's Legal Farce Comes to CanadaThe best part of Day One of Chevron's enforcement trial is that it has started. For the oil giant and its odyssey in Ecuador, this could be the beginning of the end.<br /><br />The first day of the long-awaited trial to enforce the $9.5 billion environmental judgment against Chevron began with the company flooding the courtroom with 20 lawyers to argue a simple motion over a legal technicality. Twenty more lawyers from the company were in the gallery. With Chevron, that's just how it rolls. The company can't file a simple motion without a football team of clerks taking it to the courthouse, all billing their hourly rate.<br /><br />For more than two decades, Chevron has spent at least $2 billion and <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35294-Chevron-Using-60-Law-Firms-and-2-000-Legal-Personnel-To-Evade-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability-Company-Reports" target="_blank">used 60 law firms</a> to try to obstruct efforts by the villagers to hold the company accountable for billions of gallons of toxic dumping in Ecuador's rainforest when it operated there from 1964 to 1992. (For background on the overwhelming evidence against Chevron, see <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-01-evidence-summary.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>.)<br /><br />This includes sending the case from U.S. federal court to Ecuador for trial back in 2001; selling off its assets in Ecuador as evidence mounted against it; bringing the case back to the U.S. when it lost the trial it wanted in Ecuador; getting a U.S. trial judge to buy its fabricated evidence of "fraud" from <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/chevrons-star-witness-admits-to-lying-in-the-amazon-pollution-case" target="_blank">a lying witness</a> to whom the company paid $2 million; filing two international arbitration actions against Ecuador's government to obtain a taxpayer-funded bailout of its liability; and going to more than 25 U.S. courts to sue more than 100 lawyers, activists, bloggers and supporters of the villagers as part of an intimidation campaign.<br /><br />Thus far, little of this unprecedented and unethical defense strategy has worked. In Canada, Chevron is clearly coming to the end of the trail.<br /><br />The small army of Chevron lawyers who entered the Superior Court of Ontario on Monday is trying to use its muscle to again deny due process of law to Ecuadorian villagers who have suffered from <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/cancer-summary.pdf" target="_blank">high cancer rates</a> and other health impacts related to Chevron's deliberate dumping of billions of gallons of toxic waste into the rainforest. They have come to Canada to collect on their judgment because Chevron refuses to pay up, despite having made promises to do so as a condition of sending the case to Ecuador from U.S. federal court in 2001.<br /><br />Chevron's goal is to prevent the villagers from collecting the first dollar of their judgment on the theory that all Chevron's assets in Canada are held by a wholly-owned subsidiary, and not by Chevron. There is virtually no chance the argument will work for the simple reason that Canadian law (and the law in almost every other country) makes it clear that any party can collect any assets of a scofflaw debtor to force payment, be it a subsidiary or money in a bank account.<br /><br />In its corporate shell game game that started more than two decades ago, Chevron was as slippery as ever on Monday. Any objective observer could see it wasn't working; Justice Glen Hainey &ndash; a highly respected jurist &ndash; looked bored while Chevron's lawyers droned on for almost three hours as they explained the 1,000 or so reasons why they believed Chevron Canada was not really the same as Chevron Corporation.<br /><br />People are dying in Ecuador because of Chevron's dumping and technicalities is all its lawyers could talk about.<br /><br />Chevron lawyer Benjamin Zarnett tried to claim that even though Chevron owns its subsidiary in Canada, the Ecuadorians could not seize it because it is not an actual "asset" as required by law but is instead only an "operating body" &ndash; whatever that means, as there is no such distinction in the law that we can ascertain. Put simply, while Chevron reaps 100% of the profits of Chevron Canada, it feels it should not pay for any of its liabilities.<br /><br />Alan Lenczner, the <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/the-law-page/the-canadian-face-of-the-biggest-lawsuit-in-the-world/article4254889/" target="_blank">litigator extraordinaire</a> who represents the Ecuadorian villagers in Canada, summarized Canadian law in a way that explains why Chevron is in trouble: "According to Canada's Supreme Court, a debt is enforceable against any and all assets of a given debtor." Pretty simple, and true the world over.<br /><br />The larger issue for Chevron is that it is being engulfed by risk in Canada; its team of <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.ca/2015/03/chevron-law-firm-gibson-dunn-blasted-by.html" target="_blank">ethically-challenged lawyers at Gibson Dunn &amp; Crutcher</a>&nbsp;in the New York &ndash; the same crowd that fabricated the "fraud" evidence by coaching witness Alberto Guerra for 53 consecutive days to lie on the stand &ndash; are at risk of being ordered to disgorge their documents to the Canadian court as part of the enforcement trial. That would be poetic justice to say the least.<br /><br />Chevron's use of 2,000 legal personnel to implement a scorched earth strategy to kill off the case clearly has failed. Otherwise, the trial to seize the company's substantial assets in Canada would not be taking place. And unlike in the U.S., Canadian judges cannot be so easily influenced by corporate power and political connections; they will actually rule on the merits, which is something that Chevron deeply fears.<br /><br />In fact, the villagers are within a short distance of a total victory where they can collect 100% of the judgment, plus statutory interest &ndash; a result few saw coming, and one that has never happened before on anything close to this scale when indigenous groups are the plaintiffs and a major oil company the defendant. &nbsp;Last year, <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38268-Chevron-Facing-Major-New-Difficulties-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Case-After-Losing-Before-Canada-Supreme-Court" target="_blank">Canada's Supreme Court delivered a unanimous opinion</a> granting the villagers the right to proceed with their action; <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/39254-On-Eve-of-Enforcement-Trial-Canada-s-Civil-Society-Calls-for-Chevron-s-Assets-to-Be-Frozen-So-Ecuador-Judgment-Can-Be-Paid" target="_blank">numerous Canadian civil society organizations</a> have weighed in on their behalf.<br /><br />Later this week, Justice Hainey will hear argument on whether Chevron's defenses to enforcement &ndash; largely centered on its discredited and wholly fabricated "fraud" narrative <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karen-hinton/chevrons-ghostwriting-cha_b_7191074.html?" target="_blank">that has unraveled</a> &ndash; will be allowed in as evidence. The villagers believe Chevron should not be given yet another bite at the apple after its arguments already were fully litigated and rejected by three layers of courts in Ecuador.<br /><br />If Chevron loses the motion, or even part of it, look for the company to approach the villagers for a way out of its growing risk and ongoing reputational harm for being convicted as a human rights violator. Trust us: the pain Chevron will feel to settle the case will hurt a lot less than the pain of its assets being publicly seized in humiliating fashion.<br /><br />This is what happens when an oil company has to face justice before the transparent, neutral courts of Canada. We look forward to the rest of the motions hearing &ndash; expected to last until the end of the week &ndash; and the enforcement trial, which is expected to begin in 2017.<br /><br />Stay tuned as the resolution to the world's most important corporate accountability case gets closer.http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-beginning-of-end-day-one-of.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Admin)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-2325118608319924169Mon, 12 Sep 2016 15:44:00 +00002016-09-12T11:47:51.747-04:00Chevron Once Again Spouts Tired Excuses (aka Lies) for Ignoring Toxic Mess in Ecuador<p><img style="max-width:100%" src="https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/800/1*mezuHmwYoSDpfoqtfd_9ng.jpeg" alt="Chevron Says This Unlined Oil Pit Isn’t Harming Ecuadorians & Their Food & Water Supply In Rainforest" /><br /></p><p>Reposted from <a href="https://medium.com/@KarenHinton/chevron-once-again-spouts-tired-excuses-aka-lies-for-ignoring-toxic-mess-in-ecuador-b305320b265a" target="_blank"><i>Medium</i></a>.<br /></p><p><p name="e6a8" id="e6a8" class="graf--p graf-after--h3">Today a group of indigenous Ecuadorians take their long-running fight against Chevron to a Canadian court to try and seize company assets there as payment for a $9.5 billion Ecuador judgment against the oil giant for massive oil contamination in the Amazon rainforest.</p><p name="c01f" id="c01f" class="graf--p graf-after--p">It’s been 23 years since they first filed their lawsuit in U.S. court, only to have Texaco, which Chevron later bought, successfully plead to move one of the world’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGG1nIwxNhs" data-href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGG1nIwxNhs" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">largest and most complicated environmental trials to Ecuador</a>. The U.S. courts agreed, though, it took ten years for them to sort it out, thanks largely to Texaco’s and later Chevron’s ability to drag out every legal proceeding as long as possible.</p><p name="4861" id="4861" class="graf--p graf-after--p">Delay has been their strategy from the beginning. Deplete the Ecuadorians of resources. Wait them out. And, when that didn’t work, Chevron’s top executives accused them and their lawyers of a criminal conspiracy to “shake down” the company.</p><p name="0a69" id="0a69" class="graf--p graf-after--p">In 2003, the Ecuadorians re-filed their lawsuit in the South American country, and in 2012, <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/sludge-match-chevron-legal-battle-ecuador-steven-donziger-20140828" data-href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/sludge-match-chevron-legal-battle-ecuador-steven-donziger-20140828" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">an Ecuador court ruled against Chevron</a>. Having sold all of its assets in Ecuador, Chevron refused to pay the judgment even after the nation’s two appellate courts upheld it.</p><p name="6cea" id="6cea" class="graf--p graf-after--p">During that nine years in Ecuador, Chevron devised all manner of false excuses (aka lies) to side step its responsibility for cleaning up a toxic mess deadlier and dirtier than the BP and Exxon Valdez disasters.</p><p name="1cbf" id="1cbf" class="graf--p graf-after--p">Today a Canadian judge will hear the company’s excuses for the first time. For the Ecuadorians? A million times plus in the two decades they have been waiting for justice.</p><p name="d308" id="d308" class="graf--p graf-after--p"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Chevron Excuse #1:</strong> <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">We aren’t Texaco. We never drilled in Ecuador.</em></p><p name="26cd" id="26cd" class="graf--p graf-after--p">The argument boils down to we bought their assets, but not their liabilities. No court anywhere has ever bought that one.</p><p name="7de4" id="7de4" class="graf--p graf-after--p"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Chevron Excuse #2:</strong> <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">What contamination? There is no contamination. It is a figment of your imagination.</em></p><p name="c33b" id="c33b" class="graf--p graf-after--p">But, then, someone found a <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/Adchevronelcomercio031307.pdf" data-href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/Adchevronelcomercio031307.pdf" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">document</a> where Texaco admitted to intentionally dumping around 16 billion gallons of toxic waste water into the rainforest’s rivers and streams that people still use as drinking and cooking water today. And, let’s not forget those 50,000 or so soil and water samples that Chevron itself took and found contamination. Of course, we’ve got <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karen-hinton/current-findings-of-chevr_b_6959590.html?" data-href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karen-hinton/current-findings-of-chevr_b_6959590.html?" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">hundreds of photos of the huge unlined pits</a> where Texaco permanently stored left-over crude. I guess Chevron thought no one would go check it out, either. The Ecuadorians regularly operate a “Toxico Tour” to show people how Texaco treated their <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2016/0815-chevron-vs-the-amazon-inside-the-kill-zone-part-one" data-href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2016/0815-chevron-vs-the-amazon-inside-the-kill-zone-part-one" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">rainforest like a trash dump</a>.</p><p><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Chevron Excuse #3:</strong> <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">If there is contamination, it’s not harming anyone.</em></p><p name="7d15" id="7d15" class="graf--p graf-after--p">Right. And, in the 70s, when Texaco first started drilling, the gringo workers told the indigenous that rubbing oil on their bodies was as healthy as drinking milk.</p><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Chevron Excuse #4:</strong> <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">OK, so maybe digesting oil and carcinogenic waste water is not such a good idea, but Texaco made a deal with the Ecuador government that if they cleaned up a few pits, the government wouldn’t sue Texaco, so legally we aren’t responsible.</em></p><p name="2611" id="2611" class="graf--p graf-after--p">Hold up. <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2011/0302-press-kit-for-texacos-sham-remediation" data-href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2011/0302-press-kit-for-texacos-sham-remediation" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lots of problems here</a>.</p><p name="bbd3" id="bbd3" class="graf--p graf-after--p">1) Texaco made the deal after the Ecuadorians filed their lawsuit, and a U.S. court said the deal was not binding.</p><p name="5117" id="5117" class="graf--p graf-after--p">2) The deal itself said it wasn’t binding on the Ecuadorians.</p><p name="df71" id="df71" class="graf--p graf-after--p">3) Ecuador’s courts later ruled the same, as did an international arbitration panel.</p><p name="5b00" id="5b00" class="graf--p graf-after--p">4) Even if it were binding, Texaco faked the clean-up. <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2011/0302-press-kit-for-texacos-sham-remediation" data-href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2011/0302-press-kit-for-texacos-sham-remediation" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">They just poured dirt over the pits</a>.</p><p name="1e78" id="1e78" class="graf--p graf-after--p"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Chevron Excuse #5: </strong><em class="markup--em markup--p-em">We need to take tests at all of the well sites that Texaco drilled and the pits it built — over 300 well sites and over 900 pits. And, if the Ecuador courts don’t allow it, then that proves they are corrupt.</em></p><p name="065f" id="065f" class="graf--p graf-after--p">During the Ecuador trial, it took six months to finish testing at <strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong"><em class="markup--em markup--p-em">one well site</em></strong> because of Chevron’s legal maneuvers. (Do the math. 300 well <a class="__cf_email__" href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection" data-cfemail="e3908a978690a3d1">[email&#160;protected]</a><script data-cfhash='f9e31' type="text/javascript">/* <![CDATA[ */!function(t,e,r,n,c,a,p){try{t=document.currentScript||function(){for(t=document.getElementsByTagName('script'),e=t.length;e--;)if(t[e].getAttribute('data-cfhash'))return t[e]}();if(t&&(c=t.previousSibling)){p=t.parentNode;if(a=c.getAttribute('data-cfemail')){for(e='',r='0x'+a.substr(0,2)|0,n=2;a.length-n;n+=2)e+='%'+('0'+('0x'+a.substr(n,2)^r).toString(16)).slice(-2);p.replaceChild(document.createTextNode(decodeURIComponent(e)),c)}p.removeChild(t)}}catch(u){}}()/* ]]> */</script> a year = 150 years.) The courts reviewed over 60,000 soil and water samples and found extensive contamination. No one needed to test all the sites.</p><p name="e663" id="e663" class="graf--p graf-after--p"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Chevron Excuse #6: </strong><em class="markup--em markup--p-em">An Ecuador judge wouldn’t let us take tests at all the well sites, and then he ruled against us, so the whole entire judiciary is corrupt, </em>(even though Chevron argued in U.S. court that it could get a fair trial in Ecuador). <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35294-Chevron-Using-60-Law-Firms-and-2-000-Legal-Personnel-To-Evade-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability-Company-Reports" data-href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35294-Chevron-Using-60-Law-Firms-and-2-000-Legal-Personnel-To-Evade-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability-Company-Reports" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><em class="markup--em markup--p-em">We are going to hire 2,000 lawyers</em></a><em class="markup--em markup--p-em"> and file a RICO/fraud lawsuit, back in the same U.S. court where it all started 23 years ago.</em></p><p name="aec1" id="aec1" class="graf--p graf-after--p">Why? Because we have so much money lying around we would rather spend it on lawyers than help people in Ecuador.</p><p name="7bde" id="7bde" class="graf--p graf-after--p"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Chevron Excuse #7:</strong> <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">We are going to do this our way because we are big oil. And, the U.S. better not let little countries screw around with big oil companies.</em></p><p name="2031" id="2031" class="graf--p graf-after--p">Literally. <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/chevron-lobbyists-fight-ecuador-toxic-dumping-case-93189" data-href="http://www.newsweek.com/chevron-lobbyists-fight-ecuador-toxic-dumping-case-93189" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">See this Newsweek article</a>.</p><p name="ad39" id="ad39" class="graf--p graf-after--p"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Chevron Excuse #8:</strong> <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">Thank you, U.S. courts, for not letting these little Ecuadorians screw around with us.</em></p><p name="acfa" id="acfa" class="graf--p graf-after--p">U.S. courts ruled against the Ecuadorians after hearing “fraud” and “bribery” evidence from a witness that Chevron paid <a href="http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/chevron-uses-mafia-law-against-ecuadorian-villagers" data-href="http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/chevron-uses-mafia-law-against-ecuadorian-villagers" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">at least $2 million to testify</a>.</p><p name="3ac1" id="3ac1" class="graf--p graf-after--p"><em class="markup--em markup--p-em">Like we said, </em><a href="http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/chevron-uses-mafia-law-against-ecuadorian-villagers" data-href="http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/chevron-uses-mafia-law-against-ecuadorian-villagers" class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><em class="markup--em markup--p-em">till hell freezes over</em></a><em class="markup--em markup--p-em">, we are never paying the judgment.</em></p><p name="e06c" id="e06c" class="graf--p graf-after--p">The Ecuadorians go to Canada to seize Chevron’s assets there.</p><p name="0187" id="0187" class="graf--p graf-after--p"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Chevron Excuse #9:</strong> <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">Yes, but Chevron USA — who made the decision to buy Texaco’s mess — is NOT Chevron Canada. It is a separate business.</em></p><p name="113e" id="113e" class="graf--p graf-after--p">Never mind that all of Chevron Canada’s profits go directly to Chevron USA and its shareholders.</p><p name="6872" id="6872" class="graf--p graf-after--p"><strong class="markup--strong markup--p-strong">Chevron Excuse #10:</strong> <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">We are not paying these little Ecuadorians because, if we do, even more little people will come after us.</em></p><p name="6ae7" id="6ae7" class="graf--p graf-after--p">And, we can’t have that.</p><p name="a4c6" id="a4c6" class="graf--p graf-after--p graf--last">Stay tuned for more reports from a Canadian courtroom this week.</p>http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2016/09/chevron-once-again-spouts-tired-excuses.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (The Blog Team)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-6999012655329935094Mon, 12 Sep 2016 15:39:00 +00002016-09-16T18:52:24.163-04:00Chevron’s "Hell Freezes Over" Tour<img style="max-width:100%" src="https://amazonwatch.org/assets/images/thumbs/2016/0912-day-one-of-chevrons-hell-freezes-over-tour.jpg" alt="Chevron should clean up its toxic messes." /><br /><br />Reposted from <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2016/0912-day-one-of-chevrons-hell-freezes-over-tour" target="_blank"><i>Eye on the Amazon</i></a>.<br /><br />One might wonder why one of the most clear-cut cases of environmental destruction and criminal corporate acts will be <a href="https://medium.com/@KarenHinton/chevron-once-again-spouts-tired-excuses-aka-lies-for-ignoring-toxic-mess-in-ecuador-b305320b265a" target="_blank">heard in yet another courtroom</a> twenty-three years after the first legal claims were ever made. The only reason is because when corporations like Chevron are committed to throwing billions of dollars at fighting justice instead of accepting responsibility, they often are able to delay (and thus deny) justice in perpetuity. For the sake of justice everywhere, this must end here and now.<br /><br />This chapter in the ongoing saga of Chevron's toxic contamination in Ecuador highlights one of the most grievous threats to the notion of justice in the face of crimes committed by corporations anywhere in the world. <br /><br />There's no good reason why anyone should have to be continuing this fight in Toronto, but Amazon Watch is here today because it's "Day One" of a <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/the-law-page/case-between-ecuadoreans-chevron-heading-to-ontario-court/article31821055/" target="_blank">critical enforcement trial in Canada</a> to make Chevron finally pay the US $9.5 billion (now closer to US $11 billion with interest) it owes to clean up the biggest oil-related disaster in history which is still polluting the Ecuadorian Amazon today &ndash; close to fifty years since drilling first began. We are here alongside our Ecuadorian allies because Chevron has vowed to "fight until hell freezes over and then fight it out on the ice" rather than do the right thing and clean up its mess &ndash; a mess it has confessed to creating deliberately in order to squeeze a little more profit out of its operations in the Amazon.<br /><br />As everyone should know by now, Texaco (now owned by Chevron) admitted to systematically dumping billions of gallons of toxic oil drilling waters into nearly 1,000 open-air pits in the rainforest. Those pits remain today, despite a 1992 agreement Texaco signed with the government of Ecuador to "clean up its share." Turns out that small portion that Texaco incorrectly claimed was "its share" wasn't actually cleaned up (which has been independently verified by many, including the <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/the-chevron-tapes-video-shows-oil-giant-allegedly-covering-up-amazon-contamination" target="_blank">company's own videos leaked to Amazon Watch by a Chevron whistleblower</a>). <br /><br />Despite those incontrovertible facts, in recent years Chevron has succeeded (by spending hundreds of millions of its shareholder's money on lawyers and PR firms) in changing the story to one about alleged fraud and malfeasance by what they call "corrupt lawyers" and "unethical environmental groups." There's a perverse logic to this, since when considering that the evidence is so soundly against it in Ecuador, Chevron's management decided it's could only fight on by vilifying its critics in a profoundly bizarre way, claiming it was the "real victim" in the case.<br /><br />But in Canada that convoluted story becomes a lot more problematic for the oil giant. Here Chevron will attempt to defend itself with the results of its outrageously flawed US SLAPP suit against the massive and damning evidence in the Amazon. They will ask Canada's courts to ignore the company's admission of intentional dumping, the wave of cancers and other health impacts, the indigenous peoples decimated by the contamination, the growing number of environmental and human rights NGOs publicly condemning Chevron for its failure to clean up and transparent tactics to attack its critics, and the reality that three levels of Ecuadorian courts &ndash; including its Supreme Court &ndash; reviewed the evidence (including Chevron's fraud claims) and unanimously ruled against the company.<br /><br />Furthermore, Chevron will walk into court today and ask the judge to ignore the laws of his own country and throw out the entire enforcement case based on the findings of a US judge who never went to Ecuador, doesn't understand Spanish, and refused to allow a single piece of evidence in court of the actual contamination in the Amazon. Even according to the appellate decision itself, the US case has no legal relevance in Canada. Regardless, Chevron will demand that the Canadian court accept the word of disgraced former Ecuadorian judge Alberto Guerra, Chevron's star witness, <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/chevrons-star-witness-admits-to-lying-in-the-amazon-pollution-case" target="_blank">who admitted to lying in his testimony</a> about a bribe to get a bigger payout from Chevron. Guerra received US $2 million to testify and has been unable to offer any hard evidence of his claims of a ghostwritten verdict, but Chevron still expects the Canadian judge to believe he's credible.<br /><br />The reality of this week's hearing is as simple as the first case brought against Texaco in 1993. In fact, this week's proceedings are a simple debt collection trial. Common in Canadian law is the basic notion that a party can request to enforce a valid foreign judgment and seek assistance in forcing a debtor to pay up. Meanwhile, Chevron is understandably worried and is <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2016/0627-chevrons-garbage-fire-sale" target="_blank">already seeking to sell billions of dollars of Canadian assets</a>, as we have reported before. Chevron also claims that its Canadian assets &ndash; the same ones it reports to its shareholders each year &ndash; can't be touched because they're not really theirs, something that we expect to hear more about later in the week.<br /><br />Fortunately, so far the Canadian courts have shown no signs that they are willing to arrogantly dismiss every Ecuadorian court as corrupt and refuse to review the evidence, unlike US Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan and his superiors on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Indeed Canada's Supreme Court has already sided unanimously against Chevron and allowed this trial to move forward. We will be here all week, with <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2016/0907-on-eve-of-enforcement-trial-canadas-civil-society-calls-for-chevrons-assets-to-be-frozen" target="_blank">support from some of Canada's largest environmental organizations</a>, to observe the hearings and continue to confront Chevron's ongoing lies in its attempt to crush the people brave enough to take on the third largest US corporation.<br /><br /><br /><h2>UPDATE</h2><h3>Chevron's weak argument: Canadian wing is separate from the mothership</h3><br />When Chevron first stood to defend itself from the <a href="http://business.financialpost.com/news/energy/chevron-canada-not-on-hook-for-9-5-billion-judgment-because-distinct-and-separate-from-u-s-parent-lawyers-say" target="_blank">Ecuadorians legal action</a> to <a href="http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Ecuadorians-Go-to-Canada-to-Collect-Billions-from-Chevron--20160912-0017.html" target="_blank">enforce the $9.5 billion verdict to pay for a clean-up</a>, its opening argument couldn't have been more befitting of the oil giant. This is, after all, the company whose lawyers were blasted in US Federal Court last April for suggesting that "it was Texaco" that was responsible in Ecuador and that Chevron is a different company. True to form, Chevron kicked off its opening argument by claiming that Chevron Canada is not the same as Chevron Corp and therefore can't be held liable for Chevron Corp's debts.<br /><br />Most of the courtroom yawned through a lengthy presentation of all the ways Chevron Canada is different from Chevron Corp &ndash; Chevron's lawyers even went so far as to point out that one has headquarters in Canada and the other in the US. That's really their legal argument?<br /><br />Here's the rub for Chevron: as the lawyer for the Ecuadorians, Alan Lenczner, explained, the court doesn't even need to rule on the issue of "corporate separateness" to decide whether the Ecuadorians can enforce the judgment in Ontario. They only need show only they have a judgment debt from a foreign court. Which they do, of course.<br /><br />After hours of Chevron attempts to distance itself from Chevron Canada, Lenczner called Chevron out for its same tired tactics. As he forcefully argued, "this company polluted the area [the Ecuadorian Amazon] and then dragged these people through twenty years of litigation! In first instance they sought to bring their case in the US and Chevron said no. Now they are here. This is a commercial court and it should recognize the debt that is owed."<br /><br />Lenczner also pulled apart Chevron's transparent attempt to show Chevron Canada isn't directly connected to Chevron Corp because there are six subsidiaries between the two; he explained how every one of those entities is simply an investment company and the funds pass directly from one to the other up to Chevron. "Chevron Canada is one of the cash cows that sends money to its parent. It sends $5 billion a year in dividends," he said.<br /><br />Further demonstrating the corporate oversight Chevron Corp exercises over its Canadian wing, Lenczner highlighted that fact that, per Chevron's own internal policies, every decision of $25 million or over needs to get direct approval from the Vice Chairman at Chevron Corp. <br /><br />"They can't even drill a new well without concurrence &ndash; complete agreement," Lenczner said. &ldquo;But I am not even 'allowed' to say this, your Honor." Lenczner referred to the fact that as the trial, began the company redacted the public copy of Lenczner's factum to hide all its policies that would show the level of controls over its subsidiaries. Chevron's lawyers were visibly agitated and squirmy as he continued to say things he was "not allowed to say" and declared that the public has a right to know and his brief must be unredacted. Today, both sides will continue to argue over those redactions, but for those of us with years of experience watching Chevron tactics in the courtroom, it's no surprise they want to keep the truth about their practices hidden from view.<br /><br /><h2>UPDATE #2</h2><h3>Chevron's Cash Cow</h3><br />The Chevron trial in Canadian commercial court continues as 30,000 people from Ecuadorian indigenous and farmer communities seek to enforce their $9.5 billion verdict against Chevron for an environmental clean-up. <br /><br />The Ecuadorians are using Canada's Foreign Judgment Execution Act in an attempt to gain legal recognition of the Ecuadorian court's judgement against Chevron Corp. and use the assets of Chevron Canada to satisfy it. <br /><br />Chevron's legal options here are narrow. According to Canadian legal precedent, there are very few defenses that can be raised with respect to recognition and enforcement when preceded by a final judgment like the one from Ecuador (where Chevron fought &ndash; and lost &ndash; all the way through Ecuador's Supreme Court). So Chevron will not be able to prevail by relying on the same laundry list of recycled arguments it has used to obfuscate what is at its essence a very simple issue of deliberate and widespread contamination by the oil giant. <br /><br />But with a straight face, Chevron tried one more time.<br /><br />The company started off the week by dusting off its old "It wasn't me" routine. It has argued before various courts that the Ecuadorians were suing the wrong company; that Texpet (as Texaco was known in Ecuador) is not the same as Texaco; that Texaco is not part of Chevron; that Chevron Corp. doesn't have any assets in Canada because Chevron Corp. and Chevron Canada are not the same company. That's right, shareholders: Chevron and Texaco didn't technically merge, it was a <a href="http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/rtm.asp" target="_blank">reverse triangular merger</a>! And the money generated by Chevron Canada doesn't get paid out to your dividends! With arguments like that Chevron, with feigned incredulity, claimed it doesn't know why it's even in the Toronto courtroom. Apparently it ignored this scolding from the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York:<br /><br /><blockquote>"Chevron Corporation claims, without citation to relevant case law, that it is not bound by the promises made by its predecessors in interest Texaco and ChevronTexaco, Inc. However, in seeking affirmance of the district court's forum non conveniens dismissal, lawyers from ChevronTexaco appeared in this Court and reaffirmed the concessions that Texaco had made in order to secure dismissal of Plaintiffs' complaint. In so doing, ChevronTexaco bound itself to those concessions. In 2005, ChevronTexaco dropped the name "Texaco" and reverted to its original name, Chevron Corporation. There is no indication in the record before us that shortening its name had any effect on ChevronTexaco's legal obligations. Chevron Corporation therefore remains accountable for the promises upon which we and the district court relied in dismissing Plaintiffs' action."</blockquote><br />Often, in seeking to hold transnational corporations accountable for environmental crimes and human rights abuses, victims are forced to seek relief from the parent company because the local subsidiary is purposely set up as a limited liability company with no assets, no money, and questionable legal standing. But in this case the Ecuadorians have a judgment against the parent company &ndash; Chevron Corp. itself &ndash; and seek to fulfil the judgment debt using subsidiary assets. <br /><br />As a result, all that the attorneys for the communities need to show is a direct relationship between the parent company and the subsidiary. In this case, it is complete dominance.<br /><br />"Chevron is tied hand and foot to Chevron Canada," said Alan Lenczner, attorney for the plaintiffs to the court. "Chevron Canada is Chevron's cash cow."<br /><br /><div style="margin:15px 0;text-align:center"><img style="max-width:100%" src="https://amazonwatch.org/assets/images/2016-cvx-ca-blacked-out-docs.jpg" alt="Want to see what Chevron internal docs say about its financial relationship to Chevron Canada? So do we." /><em>Want to see what Chevron internal docs say about its financial relationship to Chevron Canada? So do we.</em></div><br />To back up this argument, the Ecuadorians used discovery to obtain copies of internal Chevron documents that expose just how much control Chevron Corp. has over its subsidiaries. But Chevron doesn't want the public to see them. Responsive documents turned over were heavily redacted. Several pages were blacked out entirely. But Mr. Lenczner had seen the unredacted version, and shared the details of them in oral argument with the court. <br /><br />It turns out that Chevron Corp. is a holding company that doesn't own anything &ndash; not even its office buildings. It's essentially a shell company with all of its assets compartmentalized and stored in its subsidiaries, which is clearly an attempt to avoid responsibility in exactly this kind of case. <br /><br />Chevron Canada is a "7th tier subsidiary" of Chevron Corp. The other six companies in between Chevron Corp. and Chevron Canada are investment companies, with every level being 100% owned by the level above it. Finance flows down the cash cascade from Chevron Corp. to Chevron Canada and returns in dividends. <br /><br />Apparently Chevron Canada can't do anything on its own. There are no independent directors and the company must get agreement from the higher ups in Chevron Corp. for virtually every decision &ndash; from the major to the mundane. Money for off-road tires? Yep, have to go to corporate. Bid on a tar sands oil block in Athabasca? Talk to headquarters. Joining a pipeline consortium? Run it up the chain of command. Signing an office lease? Not without agreement from a Chevron Corp. Vice Chairman. <br /><br />Maybe the best person to be deposed if this case does go to trial is John Watson, the current Chevron Corp. CEO and Chairman of the Board. He ran Chevron Canada for years, so he must have intimate knowledge about how his corporate veil really works in practice. He also has the unique distinction of orchestrating Chevron's acquisition, err, reverse triangular merger, with Texaco when he was head of mergers and acquisitions before becoming the CEO of Chevron Corp.<br /><br />Chevron has tried to treat the entire Canadian proceeding as a <a href="http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/first+instance" target="_blank">first instance case</a> &ndash; and then arguing that there's a lack of jurisdiction. This is absurd because the Ecuadorian judgment the communities are seeking to enforce is a final judgment from the country's Supreme Court. It is not a new case. Over ten years it passed through three layers of Ecuadorian courts &ndash; trial, appellate, and Supreme courts. The communities are merely seeking to enforce it.<br /><br />So Chevron cannot re-litigate the entire case, and it cannot present defenses that have already been heard in the original proceedings. And Chevron has certainly been heard. According to the trial record, there are some 216,692 pages of evidence, 100 expert reports, 56 official visits to toxic sites. Chevron participated at every level. It brought 1,000 motions. There were 20,000 pages presented to the appeals court, and 10,000 more to the national Supreme Court.<br /><br />Chevron's tactics have always been to deny and delay, hoping to drag out the proceedings as long as possible to avoid paying and hope that the communities will give up, run out of money, or worse. The company is literally trying to delay justice in this case until all of the original plaintiffs are dead. The company's counsel famously said, "We'll fight this until hell freezes over, and then we'll fight it out on the ice."<br /><br />Well Chevron better lace up its skates, because they may get a hearing in Canada on exactly what they don't want to talk about: undeniable contamination in Ecuador and concocted claims of bribery and ghostwriting.<br /><br />When counsel for the communities began to talk about the trial record in Ecuador and the 16.8 million gallons of oil spilled, 15 billion gallons of toxic waste water dumped, and over 1,000 oil pits that stain the rainforest floor, Chevron lawyers jumped from their seats. <br /><br />Chevron tried to cut off any mention of their contamination. But unlike Judge Kaplan in New York, who forbade any talk of it and rarely let lawyers for the communities finish a sentence, Judge Hainey allowed it. The courtroom heard the criminal shortcuts Chevron took, like dumping waste instead of re-injecting it deep into the ground as was standard industry practice and building pits with no lining that allowed heavy metals and carcinogens to overflow into the forest and leach into groundwater.<br /><br />"It's disastrous. A number of people die every year," Lenczner said.<br /><br />Mr. Lenczner closed the day arguing for a truncated trial specifically on Chevron's claims of bribery and ghostwriting.<br /><br />"Chevron concocted a sordid &ndash; and untrue &ndash; tale of bribery and ghostwriting," argued Lenczner. "But Chevron's star witness in that case &ndash; a corrupt ex-judge who Chevron paid over $2 million and coached for 52 days to testify, has recanted his testimony in a different proceeding." <br /><br />"Let's have a trial on that. Bring it on!"<br /><br />On Chevron claims that the communities and lawyer ghostwrote the judgment, Lenczner exclaimed, "Let's have a trial on that, too," citing forensic evidence that proves the judge was written by him alone on his computer.<br /><br />While Chevron's back is up against the wall in Canada, you wouldn't necessarily know it by the media coverage in the U.S. Reporters who have covered the saga with incredible, pro-Chevron bias have been quick to write off the Ecuadorians. <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2014/0930-business-journalists-rush-to-rescue-chevron-from-its-ecuador-disaster" target="_blank">Those "journalists" are conveniently absent in the courtroom up here</a>, nowhere to be found when the tide turns against the company.<br /><br />The Ecuadorians are still standing, and may be closer to justice than ever. And if they can use Chevron Canada's assets to pay for a clean up, it will be a victory for communities around the world who seek to put an end to corporate impunity.<br /><br />http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2016/09/day-one-of-chevrons-freezes-over-tour.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (The Blog Team)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-7384127988279427713Wed, 10 Aug 2016 17:50:00 +00002016-08-10T13:50:59.970-04:00Power Protecting Power (the Chevron Rulings)<p>Reposted from <a href="https://medium.com/@KarenHinton/power-protecting-power-the-chevron-rulings-76a1f52ac1d1#.5i0h6qd02" target="_blank"><i>Medium</i></a>.<br /></p><p>Power protects power.<br /></p><p>This is a lesson to learn early in life when it comes to matters of the haves and have-nots of the world.<br /></p><p>Such is the case of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision this week in the 23-year-old lawsuit, brought by a group of Ecuadorian indigenous peoples against Chevron for one of the largest oil contamination disasters in history.<br /></p><p>The U.S. appellate court sided with Chevron, letting the company off the hook for pollution damage that even the oil giant does not deny.<br /></p><p>By 2013, three levels of Ecuador's courts had ruled Chevron should pay $8.6 billion in damages, but the 2nd Circuit judges blocked enforcement of the judgment in the United States, in defiance of another country's court system.<br /></p><p>In a lengthy ruling, the judges cited over a hundred cases to justify their decision, but they barely mentioned the deaths, the diseases and the destruction experienced by the Ecuadorian plaintiffs &ndash; the indigenous tribal people and villagers who live on land Chevron's adopted company, Texaco, left contaminated and dangerous almost three decades ago.<br /></p><p>They live off this land, or try to.<br /></p><p>One <strong><em>could</em></strong> say they have been forgotten, but they would have had to be remembered in the first place. They never were, here in the land of the free and the brave.<br /></p><p>They have been literally lost and invisible in the U.S. court system.<br /></p><p>On numerous occasions, one of their U.S. attorneys questioned the integrity of U.S. courts, in particular, the lower court judge who ruled the attorneys committed fraud. In turn, the judge had few kind words for the people suffering in Ecuador and focused his attention on the attorney.<br /></p><p>Clearly, the appellate court could not abide such heresy, either, especially by a U.S. attorney.<br /></p><p>So, it adopted hook, line and sinker the lower court judge's reasoning and essentially wrote a legal template to protect U.S.-based, multi-national corporations that are exploiting, have exploited or will exploit the people and resources of struggling, third world countries.<br /></p><p>The Second Circuit judges should have saved a tree and been much more succinct in its argument:<br /></p><p>We are protecting our own: our court system, our judge, our corporations.<br /></p><p>We are going to make it harder for hard-hitting human rights and environmental lawyers to come after American corporations when they take advantage of other countries' resources and workforces they need for profit.<br /></p><p>We are going to make sure the Ecuadorian plaintiffs (many of whom are indigent, are sick or have family members who are sick) do not benefit, even though the alleged fraud does not change the fact Texaco dumped 18 billion gallons of oil and toxic water into the rainforest from the early 1970s to 1990 and then faked a cleanup.<br /></p><p>We are ruling against the Ecuadorians because their attorneys did not dispute the fraud findings (even though they did in numerous court filings, including evidence showing Chevron's main witness lied.)<br /></p><p>We are ruling on both the law and <strong><em>Chevron's facts</em></strong>, even though we &ndash; appellate courts &ndash; generally do not rule on the facts and, in the process, we are going to ignore the Ecuadorians' facts.<br /></p><p>This decision is unprecedented in American law for many reasons but, most urgently, because it empowers corporations to criminalize efforts to hold them accountable for the messes they make, whether here or elsewhere.<br /></p><p>The Ecuadorians do have options, thankfully. They are seeking to enforce their judgment in Canada, where Chevron has enough assets to pay the damage award. A trial begins in September.<br /></p><p>Meanwhile, here in the U.S., the emperor wears no clothes but multi-national corporations are busy today, applauding anyway.<br /></p>http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2016/08/power-protecting-power-chevron-rulings.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (The Blog Team)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-1077918300292849478Tue, 12 Jul 2016 16:57:00 +00002016-07-13T12:57:59.753-04:00Chevron's Ted Boutrous Thoroughly Embarrassed Himself Last Week<p>Reposted from <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-paz-y-mino/chevrons-ted-boutrous-tho_b_10897296.html"><i>Huffington Post</i></a>.<br /></p><p><img src="https://amazonwatch.org/assets/images/2016-boutrous-evidence.jpg" /><br /></p><p>Ted Boutrous embarrassed himself in Huffington Post this week in an apparent attempt to "up the crazy" as the trial to seize Chevron's assets in Canada looms. It appears the "Big Lie" sickness of Donald Trump-ism continues to grow in America. The lawyer for Gibson Dunn, a firm known for its corporate attack dog efforts, has taken lying and slander to a new level. To Boutrous, giant fossil fuel corporations are the victims of legal attacks by environmental and human rights groups and the actual human rights violations or environmental destruction is either insignificant, or nonexistent in Ted's view. To top it off, Boutrous &ndash; defender of Chevron &ndash; worst global polluter ever &ndash; is lecturing that "the ends don't justify the means." It's not a coincidence that Chevron will find itself in court once again in a matter of weeks trying to justify the unjustifiable.</p><p>Boutrous has now tagged himself as the kind of lawyer who blames the rape victim for dressing the "wrong way". Or the kind of lawyer who blames the black man shot by police for being where he shouldn't have been and "looking like a threat." He has the audacity to blame the people Chevron deliberately poisoned by intentionally dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Despite the fact that it is the largest oil-related disaster in history, which remains yet today in the form of almost 1,000 toxic waste pits, Boutrous claims there's "a lack of evidence."</p><p>To the families of the over 1,400 people who have already died of cancer in the Amazon &ndash; Boutrous denies your suffering. To the indigenous communities wiped out by Chevron's operations (and Texaco) over decades, Boutrous never believed in you in the first place. To any environmental or human rights advocates who denounced the environmental "crime of the century" Boutrous says you are criminals. </p><p>For the record, here are but a few of the incontrovertible facts to which Texaco has already confessed and to which any non-corrupted lawyer would concede:</p><ul><li>Texaco operated oil wells in the Ecuadorian Amazon and <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/HBT-Agra-Vol-1-Draft-Oct-1993.pdf" target="_blank">designed a system to dump all their toxic drilling waters into the local environment</a> where 30,000 Ecuadorians lived.</li><li>From 1964 to 1992, Texaco <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/Fugro-McLelland-Field-Audit-1964-1990.pdf" target="_blank">dumped over 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into open air, unlined waste pits designed to send runoff into local waterways</a>. This was done deliberately to save approximately $3 per barrel and increase profits.</li><li>Texaco estimated it would cost a little more than $4 million to line the pits and <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/0717-texaco-memo-1972.pdf" target="_blank">decided it was too expensive</a>.</li><li>Texaco told its employees not to report spills in the Amazon, <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/0717-texaco-memo-1972.pdf" target="_blank">ordered its employees to destroy existing reports documenting oil spills</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlJX5yxFCwc" target="_blank">instructed local workers to dump the waste</a>.</li><li>Texaco never apologized to a single person from the affected communities for its deliberate acts of pollution.</li><li>Texaco left in 1992 and signed a $40 million deal with the government of Ecuador to "clean up" a small portion of the pits (that agreement specified that it did not protect Texaco from any civil action).</li></ul><p>In fact, <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/the-chevron-tapes-video-shows-oil-giant-allegedly-covering-up-amazon-contamination" target="_blank">Chevron videos taken in 2005 and leaked by a whistleblower</a> prove even the few pits Texaco claimed to have cleaned were still toxic years after the alleged "remediation". </p><p>Texaco argued for a decade in US Federal Court in New York that Ecuador was the proper venue for the case and agreed that it would honor the decisions of the Ecuadorian court system. However, on the first day of the new trial in Ecuador, Texaco insisted that the case should not be heard in Ecuador either. </p><p>Chevron's RICO trial specifically excluded any evidence of the contamination in Ecuador and in no way exonerated nor even suggested that Chevron/Texaco was not responsible for the contamination in Ecuador. </p><p>Chevron's key witness in its RICO case, disgraced ex-judge Alberto Guerra, received over $2 million from Chevron for his testimony, <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/chevrons-star-witness-admits-to-lying-in-the-amazon-pollution-case" target="_blank">admitted to lying about alleged bribes</a> from lawyers for the Ecuadorians, and admitted that he embellished his story to get Chevron to pay him more. </p><p><a href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/02/27/amazon-judges-data-secretly-scanned-in-9-8b-chevron-fight.htm" target="_blank">Forensic evidence obtained by analysts of the presiding judge's computer disprove any allegation of "ghost-writing"</a> as the verdict was a document <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2015-03-17-respondents-track-2-supplemental-rejoinder.pdf" target="_blank">saved hundreds of times over a four month period and no external devices were attached</a> (as Guerra claimed at one point).</p><p>In 2013, a <a href="http://d2zyt4oqqla0dw.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/Order-quashing-Chevron-subpoenas-April-05-2013.pdf" target="_blank">US District Court found</a> that Chevron had not shown that Amazon Watch had done anything wrong in relation to the Chevron litigation or that Amazon Watch had engaged in fraudulent conduct or furthered a conspiracy against Chevron. In an 11-page order, Judge Cousins quashed Chevron's attempts to open up Amazon Watch's files, and threatened sanctions against Gibson Dunn and Chevron if they reissued subpoenas unless they were "significantly narrower in scope to seek only highly relevant information and more carefully tailored to avoid infringing upon the organization's First Amendment rights."</p><p>None of this can be contested by Boutrous, no matter how much he may wish he could. And every single one of these facts are ones Chevron and Gibson Dunn hopes desperately that the public (and justices in Canada) will ignore or forget. Yet despite knowing them, and all those ethical guidelines Ted theoretically understands, he is willing to write that there's a "lack of evidence" against his client Chevron and the environmental NGOs asserting otherwise are criminals for doing so.</p><p>Like Chevron executives, who have spent billions to try to escape justice in Ecuador, Boutrous is impervious to shame. His firm has <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2011-12-05-cvx-fee-order.pdf">harassed</a> people, <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2011/0203-chevron-threatened-judge-with-prison-time-if-he-failed-to-grant-motions" target="_blank">threatened judges</a>, <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/chevrons-star-witness-admits-to-lying-in-the-amazon-pollution-case" target="_blank">bribed witnesses</a>, <a href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/02/27/amazon-judges-data-secretly-scanned-in-9-8b-chevron-fight.htm" target="_blank">falsified evidence</a> (<a href="http://www.law360.com/articles/621877/exclusive-gibson-dunn-partner-submitted-false-affidavits" target="_blank">not the first</a>, or <a href="http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Comm/2015/769.html" target="_blank">second time</a>), <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l618BhvWkz4" target="_blank">hidden information from the Ecuadorian court</a>, and even admitted to opposing counsel in the U.S. that their motions were improper, yet filed them anyway. And it's within this context that Boutrous writes: "the ends don't justify the means."?!? </p><p>It's unclear which is a greater danger to our society, the ability for oil companies to intentionally and catastrophically pollute, or the willingness of large law firms like Gibson Dunn to cheat, lie and generally abuse the legal system in order to deny the existence of the continuing suffering of tens of thousands of people. Add to that the vilification and intimidation of anyone who dares to speak against them. Sounds like Donald Trump's ideal America to me. </p><p>Ted Boutrous is not an idiot, but he has demonstrated absolutely no moral compass whatsoever. In the fever to defend his client &ndash; a company that admitted to the deliberate pollution in the first place &ndash; he has gone completely off the deep end. And he has embarrassed himself in the process. That's probably why he (or his staff) have obsessively deleted every comment to his post on Huffington &ndash; a delicious irony from a "First Amendment lawyer."</p><p>The notion that anyone would accept his premise when Chevron has lost every legal contest apart from Kaplan's (which is still under appeal, and was just handed another major blow by a recent SCOTUS decision about the use of RICO in such circumstances) is frankly preposterous.</p><p>No, we can't afford to sue Ted and Gibson Dunn for their acts of libel and intimidation, and they know it. The system of justice here completely favors the Chevrons of our society. That's why they are infuriated that the people of Ecuador actually persevered. Despite all Chevron and Gibson Dunn did to prevent it, they couldn't stop the $9.5 billion judgement against them. They won't be able to stop the action to enforce that verdict in Canada to seize Chevron's assets there, but Ted Boutrous and his buddies intend to get much richer trying. </p><p>Ted's post is a sign that the Chevron attack dogs are foaming at the mouth the closer we get to a trial in Canada (it begins in September). Last year, when the Supreme Court of Canada sided unanimously with the Ecuadorians to allow them to sue to enforce their verdict, it sent shock waves through Chevron's board room. The phone calls to Gibson Dunn have probably been non-stop ever since.</p><p>Ted Boutrous is using Huffington Post to spread more lies that Chevron hopes will sow more doubt about this case. "Perhaps there is no evidence in Ecuador after all." That's what they hope journalists or justices in Canada will think. Perhaps global warming is a hoax, too. "I read on the internet," says Donald Trump. That is the era we live in. </p><p>Anyone can appreciate the irony when Ted Boutrous calls Trump out for his racist comments about a judge while he dismisses Ecuador's entire judicial system, local communities and indigenous peoples as either too corrupt or too "unsophisticated" to make a just ruling based on the overwhelming evidence in the Amazon. Trump doesn't appear embarrassed, but Ted certainly has been. </p>http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2016/07/chevrons-ted-boutrous-thoroughly.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (The Blog Team)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-6044479039966495988Wed, 06 Jul 2016 18:53:00 +00002016-07-07T14:56:50.714-04:00In Chevron's Ecuador Case, Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied But, Hey, Football Season's About to Begin<p>Reposted from <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karen-hinton/in-chevrons-ecuador-case-_b_10816476.html"><i>Huffington Post</i></a>.<br /></p><p>What does superstar quarterback Tom Brady and a group of Ecuadorian indigenous tribes suing Chevron for massive oil contamination have in common? </p><p>They both had lawsuits heard in U.S. federal trial court and appealed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan. That, however, is where any similarity ends.</p><p>Brady &ndash; who only wants to play football &ndash; got his <a href="http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/15674493/tom-brady-new-england-patriots-files-appeal-court-decision-upheld-four-game-suspension-deflategate" target="_blank">decision</a> from the appellate court <em><strong>only 4 weeks</strong></em> after oral argument. </p><p>The Ecuadorians, who only want to survive on their ancestral lands without being poisoned by oil waste?</p><p>They are still waiting, <em><strong>64 weeks after their oral argument</strong></em>. </p><p>A ruling on whether a superstar football player, married to a superstar model, gets to play football appears to be more important than cleaning up toxic waste in the Ecuador rainforest.<br /></p><p>The Ecuadorians' quest for justice began <em><strong>over 23 years ago</strong></em> when they sued Chevron for <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGG1nIwxNhs" target="_blank">intentionally contaminating</a> the Amazon rainforest where they literally live off the land. </p><p>Chevron and its legions of law firms have done everything in their power <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.mx/2014/12/chevrons-12-step-program-to-obtain.html" target="_blank">to smother the lawsuit</a> in legal delays to block a $9.5 billion Ecuador judgment against the oil giant. The country's highest court upheld the judgment in a unanimous decision, in the forum where Chevron insisted the trial be held &ndash; in Ecuador. In all, <a href="http://www.chevroninecuador.com/2016/06/chevron-should-be-sanctioned-for-filing.html" target="_blank">18 consecutive appellate judges</a> in Ecuador and Canada have ruled in favor of the villagers and against Chevron. </p><p>With the writing on the wall, Chevron still refuses to pay the judgment, which serves to further delay the case and force the Ecuadorians to try to seize the company's assets in other countries. </p><p>Justice delayed is justice denied but, hey, football season is about to begin. </p><p>I'm not so presumptuous to think this blog will have any impact on the timing of the 2nd Circuit ruling in the Ecuadorians' case. I also recognize legal arguments vary in complexity, but it's important for environmental advocates to take note of the difference in treatment. A valid argument can be made that a U.S. courtroom is the last place to look for justice when trying to hold a U.S. corporation accountable for environmental misdeeds in other countries.</p><p>For example, the Southern District Court of New York (the federal trial court in Manhattan) is largely responsible for making a legal mess of the original lawsuit against Chevron filed before U.S. Judge Jed Rakoff in 1993. In 2001, he ordered the case returned to Ecuador, over the objections of the indigenous groups. (Yes, it took eight years just to dismiss and move it to Ecuador.) The Ecuadorians argued their country's courtroom could not handle a mass tort case this complicated.<br /></p><p>Since then six top-shelf corporate law firms, at the direction of Chevron, have used every legal trick in the book to <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35294-Chevron-Using-60-Law-Firms-and-2-000-Legal-Personnel-To-Evade-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability-Company-Reports" target="_blank">slow down the case</a> in Ecuador and grind it into quicksand. </p><p>This includes drowning the country's under-funded court system with motions, some of which were duplicates of earlier motions already ruled on, and bankrupting the Ecuadorians by filing related lawsuits against them in over two dozen jurisdictions across the U.S. See <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2012/0116-us-law-firms-bill-chevron-exorbitant-fees-to-prevent-clean-up-of-ecuador-pollution-crisis" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35294-Chevron-Using-60-Law-Firms-and-2-000-Legal-Personnel-To-Evade-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability-Company-Reports" target="_blank">here</a>. Finally in 2011 &ndash; eight years later &ndash; an Ecuador court ruled against Chevron. </p><p>Enter Gibson Dunn's Randy Mastro.</p><p>Leading the legal hordes is Mastro, now infamous for having been paid $8 million of taxpayer money to do a bogus "study" supposedly "exonerating" Governor Chris Christie in the Bridgegate scandal. <a href="http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/12/christies_scam_investigation_on_bridgegate_demands.html" target="_blank">Mastro and his team destroyed notes</a> from his own investigation that produced no negative findings against Christie. Watchdog groups and some New Jersey electeds have questioned whether the cover-up of Bridgegate should be treated as a criminal conspiracy, involving the Governor, his staff, Gibson Dunn and specifically Mastro. (Gibson Dunn is earning quite a reputation; the High Court of England last year ruled the corporate law firm <a href="http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Comm/2015/769.html" target="_blank"> falsified evidence</a> in another case.) </p><p>Mastro - who with great rhetorical flair accused poor Ecuadorian villagers and indigenous peoples living in the rainforest of a <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/judge-says-ecuadors-95-billion-settlement-against-chevron-was-fraud-230907" target="_blank">"criminal conspiracy" </a> to shake down Chevron &ndash; also was the man responsible for prepping the main witness in the U.S. "fraud" lawsuit against the Ecuadorians and their attorneys. </p><p>That witness, Alberto Guerra, spent a whopping <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2014-07-02-donziger-brief.pdf" target="_blank">53 days</a> being coached by Mastro and Gibson Dunn lawyer Avi Weitzman to get his story straight in federal court. </p><p>We know this because Guerra recently admitted under oath in a separate but related case that he <a href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/12/01/chevron-concedes-errors-in-crucial-witness-testimony.htm" target="_blank">lied about major portions of his testimony</a> during the lower court trial in the Southern District, heard by U.S. Judge Lewis Kaplan. </p><p>In April 2015, Guerra admitted before an international arbitration panel <a href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/12/01/chevron-concedes-errors-in-crucial-witness-testimony.htm" target="_blank">he changed his story not once, but three times</a>. These are Guerra's three stories:</p><p>Story No. 1: Guerra alleged the Ecuadorians' attorneys "ghostwrote" the Ecuador judgment and hired Guerra to edit it, which he said he did on his home computer. But when Chevron couldn't find the judgment on his computer, Guerra recanted.</p><p>Story No. 2: Actually, Guerra said, the verdict was on a flash drive that the Ecuador judge hearing the case gave him at the Quito airport. But when Chevron couldn't find the judgment on any flash drives, Guerra changed his story yet again.</p><p>Story No. 3: Actually, Guerra said, he traveled to the jungle on a bus and edited the judgment there on a laptop owned by one of the Ecuadorian attorneys.</p><p>As each story unraveled and evolved, Chevron agreed to pay Guerra more money for testimony the company desperately needed to hold up its "fraud" allegations. To date, Chevron has paid him at least $2 million in cash and benefits and moved him and his family to the U.S., in exchange for his testimony. He also is an admitted criminal, testifying under oath to taking numerous bribes in other cases before he was removed from the bench. Read this <a href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/12/01/chevron-concedes-errors-in-crucial-witness-testimony.htm" target="_blank">Courthouse News article</a> for more background.</p><p>This information is in front of the 2nd Circuit, including an <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2016/0627-us-supreme-court-deals-blow-to-chevron-on-ecuador-pollution-case" target="_blank">argument that a recent Supreme Court decision</a> essentially nullifies Chevron's entire case. </p><p>Chevron and Mastro put many, if not all of their eggs, in the Guerra basket that now has large holes in it, threatening to sink Chevron's entire retaliation strategy. </p><p>Perhaps like Brady's football, Mastro's argument has been deflated. The Second Circuit should take note. Hopefully, soon.</p>http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2016/07/in-chevrons-ecuador-case-justice.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (The Blog Team)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-7289185120277663826Wed, 06 Jul 2016 17:53:00 +00002016-07-06T19:53:19.423-04:00Chevron Shareholders Still Wary of Risks from $11 Billion Ecuador Judgment<p>Reposted from <a href="http://csrstrategygroup.com/chevron-shareholders-still-wary-of-risks-from-11-billion-ecuador-judgment/"><i>CSR Strategy Group</i></a>.</p><p>Chevron shareholders remain wary of the risks from an $11 billion judgment against the company in Ecuador. They also continue to be critical of Chevron management's mishandling of the case.</p><p>At Chevron's annual shareholder meeting in May, a significant number of Chevron shareholders expressed criticism of management. Shareholders voted 378,540,311 shares in support of a resolution that cited management's mishandling of the case in Ecuador and called for tighter shareholder oversight.</p><p>Put simply, Chevron management lost the confidence of shareholders holding nearly one third of shares and valued at almost $38 billion.</p><p>In a <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/93410/000121465916011732/n523160px14a6g.htm">solicitation to shareholders filed at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission</a>, the resolution proponent, <a href="http://www.newground.net/">Newground Social Investment</a> was severely critical of Chevron management.</p><blockquote><p>Proponents believe that Chevron’s management has materially mishandled legal matters brought against the company by communities in Ecuador &ndash; in ways that increased liabilities for the matter, currently amounting to $9.5 billion. Moreover, proponents are concerned about the adequacy of the company’s disclosure of those risks to shareholders. Finally, proponents are deeply troubled that the company has harassed longstanding shareholders who questioned the company’s approach to these issues&#8230;.</p><p>&#8230;It is our belief that instead of negotiating an expedient, fair, and comprehensive settlement with the affected communities in Ecuador, Chevron management pursued a costly, risky, and ultimately unsuccessful legal strategy that involved material missteps. Although the Company has engaged in various legal efforts to try to negate the Ecuador judgment, the proliferation of circumstances and locations where the Ecuador judgment may be enforced increases the likelihood of a large eventual loss as a result of the case.</p></blockquote><p>In the past year, Chevron's management has suffered additional court setbacks and made strategic blunders in the case that heighten the risks to shareholders.</p><p><strong>Chevron continues to lose legal ground to the Ecuadoran villagers as they seek to collect on their $11 judgement against the company.</strong> To collect the $11 billion judgment, the Ecuadorian villagers have filed judgment enforcement actions targeting Chevron assets in Canada, Brazil, and Argentina. In September 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously ruled that the Ecuadorian plaintiffs may proceed to enforce the $11 billion judgment against Chevron’s Canadian assets. This figure represents more than 73% of the value of Chevron’s total assets in Canada. In addition, time is not on Chevron's side. Interest on the underlying judgment is increasing Chevron’s liability by an estimated $275 million per year.</p><p><strong>Meanwhile Chevron's efforts to put pressure on the Ecuadoran government may spectacularly backfire.</strong> Chevron has been awarded $96 million plus compound interest by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague due to Ecuador’s breach of its contractual obligations to Texaco. On June 6, 2016, the United States Supreme Court refused to hear Ecuador’s appeal of that ruling. What turns this good news into bad for the company is that the $96 million judgment against Ecuador is now an asset of Chevron's in Ecuador.</p><p>The Ecuadoran courts have already awarded what remained of Chevron's assets in the country to the plaintiffs as part of their collection on their $11 billion judgment. If the plaintiffs were to collect even a few million dollars of the $96 million judgment, they would have the money necessary to launch further collections against Chevron's assets around the world. As Marco Simons, Legal Director of EarthRights International, <a href="https://www.earthrights.org/blog/chevron-fights-justice-ecuador-two-fronts-needs-win-everywhere">noted in a prescient blog</a> five years ago:</p><blockquote><p>[T]he plaintiffs only need to win once or a few times, while Chevron needs to win everywhere. Even if Chevron wins twenty cases, just one loss could cost the company hundreds of millions or billions of dollars.</p></blockquote><p><strong>Chevron also faces a possible overturning or rollback of its judgment against the plaintiffs and their lawyers in its RICO suit.</strong> A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision sharply curtailed the use of the RICO statute in a case against RJR Nabisco over cigarette smuggling in Europe, <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2016-letter-re-rjr-sc-decision.pdf">according to a new legal filing</a> by Gupta/Wessler.</p><p>Deepak Gupta, who represents U.S. attorney Steven Donziger, made the <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2016-letter-re-rjr-sc-decision.pdf" target="_blank">submission</a> to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit asserting that the RJR decision &#8220;further limits private RICO actions by requiring proof of a quantifiable, redressable and domestic injury &ndash; something Chevron has steadfastly refused to identify," Gupta said. The RJR decision also made clear that the RICO statute could not be used to attack a final judgment from a foreign court, as Chevron has tried to do in the Ecuador case, Gupta added in the letter.</p><p><strong>Chevron's playbook in the Ecuador case of downplaying the risks to shareholders and savagely attacking its critics may well be unravelling.</strong> As Katie Redford, Director of EarthRights International, noted in <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/katie-redford/the-new-corporate-playboo_b_10599544.html">her recent blog &#8220;The New Corporate Playbook, Or What To Do When Environmentalists Stand In Your Way:"</a></p><blockquote><p>Companies are no longer satisfied with evading their liability for human and environmental harms. Of course, they continue their tried and true tactics of denial, <a href="https://www.smokeandfumes.org/" target="_blank">cover ups and fraud</a>, but with the additional goal of silencing their critics, they are counter-attacking, mounting a sophisticated and well-funded campaign to target, sue, surveil, and harass the activists, lawyers, and NGOs that expose their harms. They have powerful allies in Congress and in the media that aid them in their efforts to intimidate, distract and sap the resources of organizations that are already out-resourced in what can only be described as David and Goliath struggles.</p></blockquote><p>There is probably no other case where a company has pursued this playbook so vigorously as Chevron has done in the Ecuador oil pollution case. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/09/business/chevron-takes-aim-at-an-activist-shareholder.html">Chevron even subpoenaed its own shareholders who voiced their concerns.</a></p><p>However, shareholders have continued to voice their concerns over Chevron management's mishandling of the Ecuador case. The continued high vote for resolutions critical of management demonstrate that a large number of Chevron's own shareholders lack confidence in the company's ability to withstand the fall-out from losing the Ecuador lawsuit without significant damage to shareholder value.</p>http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2016/07/chevron-shareholders-still-wary-of.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (The Blog Team)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-368612362577250156Tue, 28 Jun 2016 16:01:00 +00002016-07-03T13:01:25.814-04:00U.S. Supreme Court Decision Undermines Chevron's Defense in Ecuador Pollution CaseChevron's faltering "racketeering" (or RICO) case against the Ecuadorian villagers the company poisoned with its toxic dumping was just <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/39075-U-S-Supreme-Court-Deals-Blow-to-Chevron-on-Ecuador-Pollution-Case-In-Latest-RICO-Decision" target="_blank">rendered a nullity by the U.S. Supreme Court</a>, dealing another major blow to the oil giant as it attempts to evade paying the $11 billion pollution judgment.<br /><br />(For full background on last week's U.S. Supreme Court decision in the RJR Nabisco case and how it hurts Chevron in the Ecuador case, see <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/39075-U-S-Supreme-Court-Deals-Blow-to-Chevron-on-Ecuador-Pollution-Case-In-Latest-RICO-Decision" target="_blank">here</a>.)<br /><br />Chevron in 2010 deployed <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35294-Chevron-Using-60-Law-Firms-and-2-000-Legal-Personnel-To-Evade-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability-Company-Reports" target="_blank">hundreds of lawyers</a> to attack and try to demonize indigenous villagers who has just won a multi-billion dollar judgment in Ecuador against the company. Three layers of courts in Ecuador had found Chevron guilty of dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste. Chevron was also reeling after having been embarrassed by brutal exposes of its jungle misconduct in prominent media outlets, including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGG1nIwxNhs" target="_blank">60 Minutes</a>, <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/05/texaco200705" target="_blank">Vanity Fair</a>, and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/business/global/15chevron.html?_r=0" target="_blank">The New York Times</a>.<br /><br />Chevron of course believes the rule of law should apply only when it wins in court, not when it loses.<br /><br />Angry and desperate, Chevron went on the counterattack. It sold its assets in Ecuador and then filed a retaliatory RICO action in the United States against the villagers and their lawyers claiming the entire judgment was a product of "sham" litigation despite <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-01-evidence-summary.pdf" target="_blank">overwhelming evidence</a> against the company. (See <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lou-dematteis/chevron-ecuador_b_1421407.html" target="_blank">here</a> for photos and testimonies of some of Chevron's victims in Ecuador.)<br /><br />Rather than being assigned randomly, Chevron's RICO case was grabbed by a headline-hungry U.S. judge who never disclosed he had <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/37478-U-S-Judge-Kaplan-Held-Investments-In-Chevron-When-He-Ruled-for-Company-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Dispute" target="_blank">personal investments in </a>Chevron when he presided over the case, despite clear signs he was motivated by bias.<br /><br />The judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, constantly disparaged the villagers and their country from the bench. A prominent law scholar, New York University Professor Burt Neuborne, blasted Kaplan for <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2014/1110-law-scholar-criticizes-judge-kaplan-for-using-judicial-slander" target="_blank">engaging in "judicial slander"</a> to undermine Chevron's victims. Other international legal scholars and <a href="http://guptawessler.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/AmazonWatch-Amnesty-Intl.pdf" target="_blank">U.S. civil society groups such as Amnesty International and Earth Rights</a>&nbsp;criticized the judge for his intellectual dishonesty and animus toward the indigenous groups.<br /><br />A subsequent bench proceeding (Kaplan refused to seat a jury of impartial fact finders) looked more like a Soviet-era show trial. Chevron corporate executives cheered from the gallery and virtually every ruling went in favor of the company. Meticulously choreographed, the Chevron-Kaplan show trial was <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2014-chevrons-mockery-of-justice.pdf" target="_blank">a mockery of justice </a>from the start, and the case should have been thrown out immediately, as underscored by the U.S. Supreme Court decision.<br /><br />Aaron Page, a U.S. lawyer who represents the Ecuadorians, put it perfectly:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Chevron's RICO case in Ecuador already was doomed because of its countless legal excesses and absurd factual findings. Now, the Supreme Court has ruled you can't bring a RICO case, even a legitimate one, based on harm that took place abroad. This is another example of why Chevron's RICO case should have been thrown out on day one.</blockquote>It is worth reviewing a few of the lowlights of what can only be described as a hostile takeover of our taxpayer-funded federal court system by a wealthy private corporation:<br /><ul><li>Chevron and its investigators (Yohi Ackerman and Andres Rivero) paid $38,000 in cash out of suitcase and more than $2 million overall to an admittedly corrupt former judge in Ecuador, Alberto Guerra. In exchange, Guerra became Chevron's star witness and lied on the stand by claiming he had been in a meeting where a "bribe" was discussed.<br /><br /></li><li>Subsequent to the RICO trial, Guerra <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/10/27/yes-i-lied-vindicating-villagers-star-chevron-witness-busted-perjury" target="_blank">admitted admitted under oath that he made up key parts of his testimony</a>. He also confessed to accepting bribes when he was a judge, and paying bribes to judges when he was practicing law. It also emerged that Guerra admitted lying to Chevron to induce the company to pay him more money for his testimony. "Money talks, but gold screams," Guerra told Chevron in a taped conversation.<br /><br /></li><li>Chevron put Guerra on the stand in the RICO case after the company's lawyers at the U.S. firm of Gibson Dunn coached him for 53 consecutive days. After the coaching, Guerra began to claim he had information the plaintiffs wrote the trial court judgment. The claim was a lie, as an <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/37943-Chevron-s-Main-Defense-Unraveling-in-Ecuador-Pollution-Case-Says-New-Forensic-Report-" target="_blank">independent forensic analysis later proved</a>. Neither Chevron nor its outside lawyers have been held accountable for coaching a witness to lie in a federal court.<br /><br /></li><li>The judge also let Chevron pay more than $15 million to Kroll, a private investigations service populated by former FBI and CIA agents, <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2012/0315-chevron-using-espionage-against-lawyers" target="_blank">to spy on lawyers for the villagers</a> -- a clear violation of the law and professional ethics. U.S. attorney Steven Donziger was followed and harassed by six separate Kroll agents in Manhattan. Kroll also admitted it prepared 20 to 30 reports on Donziger in an attempt to dig up dirt and discredit him.<br /><br /></li><li>Chevron also convinced Kaplan – who has a long history of hostility toward plaintiff's lawyers – to actively promote its scheme. Kaplan denied the Ecuadorians a jury so he could write the decision himself, which was largely cribbed from Chevron's briefs. Kaplan also allowed secret witnesses and refused to consider any of the environmental evidence (such as soil and water samples) that clearly proved the oil company was guilty. For a deep dive into Kaplan's miscarriage of justice, read the 65-page factual summary in <a href="http://guptawessler.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/CA2-brief-corrections-RC4.pdf" target="_blank">this appellate brief</a>.</li></ul>In short, from his Manhattan trial court, Judge Kaplan tried to rule that Ecuador's entire judiciary was illegal. Worse, he tried to singlehandedly overturn a critical ruling from another country's Supreme Court. And he allowed Chevron's made-up facts into his courtroom to justify a defective ruling that has embarrassed the federal judiciary and been lambasted <a href="http://guptawessler.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/International-Law-Professors.pdf" target="_blank">by legal scholars</a> from nine countries around the world.<br /><br />&nbsp;Although Guerra was busted for perjury, Chevron has kept him on its payroll to this day. The $2 million in payments is only what Chevron disclosed it had paid Guerra as of 2013. Today, that number is surely an order of magnitude greater, but Chevron refuses to disclose the real value of the slew of benefits it has bestowed on this tawdry criminal.<br /><br />&nbsp;When the dust clears and the villagers collect on their judgment – most likely in Canada, where they are <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38268-Chevron-Facing-Major-New-Difficulties-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Case-After-Losing-Before-Canada-Supreme-Court" target="_blank">advancing toward a seizure of company assets</a> after <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ecuadorians-can-sue-chevron-in-canada-supreme-court-rules/article26225413/" target="_blank">winning a unanimous decision</a> before the country's Supreme Court – that will not be the end of the story. The people in and out of Chevron responsible for this abuse of power need to be held accountable. They include, most notably, Chevron CEO John Watson, Chevron General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate and Randy Mastro, Andrea Newman, and Avi Weitzman from the outside firm of Gibson Dunn.<br /><br />Chevron's RICO case and the bombastic, inaccurate, and pre-ordained factual conclusions of Judge Kaplan's show trial are currently being reviewed by a New York federal appellate court. That court had a relatively easy job to begin with, given the <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2014-chevrons-mockery-of-justice.pdf" target="_blank">many fatal flaws</a> in Chevron's case. The U.S. Supreme Court's latest decision on the RICO law just made that job even easier.<br /><br />http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2016/06/chevron-should-be-sanctioned-for-filing.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Admin)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-6371625188684456168Mon, 27 Jun 2016 21:48:00 +00002016-06-27T17:48:02.229-04:00Chevron’s Garbage Fire Sale<img style="max-width:100%" src="https://amazonwatch.org/assets/images/thumbs/2016/0627-chevrons-garbage-fire-sale.jpg" alt="Chevron's Richmond refinery flare at 9:30 pm. Photo credit: Jeremy Miller" /><br /><br />Reposted from <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2016/0627-chevrons-garbage-fire-sale" target="_blank"><i>Eye on the Amazon</i></a>.<br /><br />Chevron sending up massive flares in Richmond is not the only sign things are getting hot for the oil giant on the run from a $11 billion verdict.<br /><br />On June 19th, Chevron's Richmond refinery erupted a torrent of flames and black smoke into the air and <a href="http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Large-Flare-Seen-Over-Chevron-Refinery-in-Richmond-286310471.html" target="_blank">terrified local residents</a>. The community remembers all too well when 15,000 people were sent to the hospital when that same refinery exploded in 2012. Unfortunately, since then the public hospital in Richmond has closed. They can't afford another explosion as the closest public emergency room services are now thirty to forty minutes away in Oakland.<br /><br />But that's not the only thing "on fire" at Chevron lately. Similar to the company's claims that it needs massive flares to burn off excess gas, Chevron claims there's "nothing to see here" as it <a href="http://vancouversun.com/business/local-business/chevron-puts-burnaby-oil-refinery-b-c-distribution-network-on-sales-block" target="_blank">tries to sell off US $5 billion in assets in its Burnaby oil refinery in British Columbia</a>. But the company's actions and track record tell a different story. Realizing it was going to lose in its legal battle and be forced to accept responsibility for deliberately dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into the Ecuadorian Amazon, Chevron instead sold off all its assets and fled that country. It's been a corporate criminal on the run ever since, but the law is finally catching up with Chevron &ndash; in Canada.<br /><br />In September, the Ecuadorian plaintiffs &ndash; bolstered by a <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ecuadorians-can-sue-chevron-in-canada-supreme-court-rules/article26225413/" target="_blank">unanimous decision in their favor by Canada's Supreme Court</a> &ndash; will begin their trial to seize Chevron's Canadian assets to cover its US $11 billion debt to the affected communities in Ecuador.<br /><br />Chevron currently holds approximately US $15 billion of assets in Canada, almost all of which is at risk due to this enforcement action. Chevron refuses to acknowledge its full liability to the SEC and to its shareholders, and this latest move may give a clue as to why. Unable to replicate its customary racist attacks against Ecuador's judiciary and legal system, Chevron has to dream up new methods in Canada. <br /><br />The Ecuadorians have defeated Chevron in every single legal contest which has considered the evidence of their crimes in Ecuador (Chevron's singular victory &ndash; a retaliatory RICO SLAPP suit in the US &ndash; notoriously forbade any evidence of contamination in its proceedings and is still under appeal). The writing is on the wall in Canada, and Chevron is trying to slip out quietly and escape justice once again.<br /><br />To make matters worse for the oil giant, a <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2016/0627-us-supreme-court-deals-blow-to-chevron-on-ecuador-pollution-case" target="_blank">recent U.S. Supreme Court decision on the use of RICO</a> may preemptively doom its defense before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. As respected appellate attorney Deepak Gupta wrote, the Supreme Court decision "further limits private RICO actions by requiring proof of a quantifiable, redressable and domestic injury &ndash; something Chevron has steadfastly refuse to identify." The decision also made clear that the RICO statute could not be used to attack a final judgment from a foreign court, as Chevron has tried to do in the Ecuador case. Aaron Page, a U.S. lawyer for the Ecuadorians called it a "nail in the coffin" of Chevron's RICO case. He added, "Now, the Supreme Court has ruled you can't bring a RICO case, even a legitimate one, based on harm that took place abroad. This is another example of why Chevron's RICO case should have been thrown out on day one." <br /><br />Bottom line on these developments: no matter how desperate it gets, Chevron can't hide its actions in Canada or its pollution in Ecuador or Richmond.http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2016/06/chevrons-garbage-fire-sale.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (The Blog Team)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-5691538263041655532Fri, 27 May 2016 00:16:00 +00002016-05-31T10:21:10.104-04:00Chevron CEO Watson Shows He Is Out of Touch On Ecuador Litigation, Fossil FuelsChevron CEO John Watson and his Board of Directors seemed terribly out of touch at the company's annual meeting this week where they were once again pounded by the environmental group Amazon Watch and its allies. Watson simply refused to deal with his two key challenges: the $11 billion Ecuador pollution judgment, and climate change.<br /><br />For shareholders, it was hardly a performance that inspires confidence in the future. Chevron's revenues are down 75% compared to last year and its stock price continues to lag behind its peers. Nobody wants a Luddite running an oil company, but that is what Watson is in danger of becoming.<br /><br />On Ecuador, Watson arrogantly dismissed the comments of renowned indigenous leader Humberto Piaguaje. A Secoya elder who has seen his village devastated by Chevron's pollution, Piaguaje had traveled from his jungle home to confront Watson directly about the enormous court judgment won by thousands of villagers in 2013. The decision against Chevron has been confirmed by no fewer than 18 appellate judges in Ecuador and Canada.<br /><br />Yet Watson refuses to pay up, prompting the villagers to try to seize Chevron assets in Canada. Given that Chevron has extremely valuable oil fields and other properties in Canada, it is likely the villagers will collect the entirety of their judgment in that country.<br /><br />Watson had the gall to suggest to Piaguaje that his thoughts about how Chevron's pollution destroyed the ancestral lands of indigenous groups were not really his own. Surely, Watson said, these thoughts were planted in his head by lawyers. After Piaguaje asserted that Chevron's "blame the victim" strategy in Ecuador is racist, Watson became visibly flustered and turned off the microphone after saying, "I've been trying to answer questions on Ecuador for seven years. I am not going to take any more questions." (For more details, see <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2016/0525-chevron-ceo-and-board-confronted-for-lying-to-shareholders-sec-and-public-at-agm" target="_blank">this account from Amazon Watch</a> and <a href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/05/25/chevron-draws-protest-on-climate-ecuador.htm" target="_blank">this article </a>by Courthouse News.)<br /><br />Watson -- who received $22 million in compensation last year -- was even more arrogant on the climate change issue. In contrast to several European-based oil majors, Chevron under Watson's leadership opposed all six resolutions designed to drag the company into the modern world on this most critical of challenges. Watson obviously has no plan to deal with Chevron's stranded asset problem as the world transitions to a clean energy economy. This is a great example of how poor citizenship and flawed decision making combust into a perfect storm of corporate stupidity.<br /><br />Here are some more signs from the annual meeting that Watson has his head in the sand:<br /><br />*Watson did not even acknowledge that because of the Ecuador judgment Chevron faces the seizure of billions of dollars of company assets in Canada, where <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ecuadorians-can-sue-chevron-in-canada-supreme-court-rules/article26225413/" target="_blank">the country's Supreme Court recently ruled for the villagers</a>. Chevron is on the firing line of <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2014/0123-advocacy-groups-blast-chevron-for-retaliation-tactics" target="_blank">one of the most important environmental cases in history</a>,&nbsp;yet&nbsp;Watson was mum about what appears to be a threat to the company's business model.<br /><br />**Also on the Ecuador litigation, Watson was silent on how Chevron's&nbsp;<a href="https://news.vice.com/article/chevrons-star-witness-admits-to-lying-in-the-amazon-pollution-case" target="_blank">key witness from Ecuador has repudiated his own testimony</a>&nbsp;and admitted lying to get more money from the company. Chevron has paid the witness at least $2 million and moved his entire family to the U.S.; the company's entire defense hinges largely on the testimony of this one witness.<br /><br />**Watson also completely ignored a <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2015/0408-the-chevron-tapes" target="_blank">whistleblower video</a> that shows Chevron scientists trying to defraud Ecuador's courts by hiding evidence of the company's pollution. The video was given to Amazon Watch by a company insider.<br /><br />**During the meeting, Watson failed to beat back <a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/93410/000121465916011732/n523160px14a6g.pdf" target="_blank">a shareholder resolution</a> from Newground Social Investment critical of Chevron's mishandling of the Ecuador litigation. The resolution received support from 30% of all shareholders, or a majority of all shares not controlled by the company. This was a stinging rebuke to company management, which has used 60 different law firms to fight the villagers.<br /><br />**Watson also refused to discuss how Chevron recently <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2016/04/chevron-reeling-oil-giant-abandons-key.html" target="_blank">dropped a key legal claim</a> against the villagers because the company concluded that its arguments were certain to be rejected by courts.<br /><br />**Finally, Watson again failed to acknowledge the humanitarian catastrophe in the area of Ecuador where the company operated from 1964 to 1992. <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/cancer-summary.pdf" target="_blank">Cancer rates have skyrocketed</a>&nbsp;and hundreds if not thousand of people have died from oil-related diseases since Texaco (bought by Chevron in 2002) started to systematically dump toxic waste into the Amazon in the 1960s.<br /><br />Watson was the Chevron executive who in 2001 fought hard for the merger with Texaco knowing that it had left billions of gallons of toxic waste in its wake. Watson didn't respect the sophistication and determination of indigenous groups at the time; he obviously still doesn't.<br /><br />Chevron Board members, who are paid around $400,000 per year, remain silent in the face of this fiasco. Most would rather collect their fee by getting along with management when they should focus on exercising their fiduciary duties on behalf of shareholders.<br /><br />What a sorry commentary on the company and its leaders.<br /><br />http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2016/05/chevron-ceo-watson-shows-he-is-out-of.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Admin)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-1085186040471708210Tue, 24 May 2016 16:54:00 +00002016-05-24T19:07:34.968-04:00With Assets Under Threat, Chevron CEO Faces Judgment Day Over Ecuador At Annual MeetingChevron CEO John Watson <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38980-Chevron-CEO-Faces-Pressure-Cooker-Over-Ecuador-Climate-Change-at-Shareholder-Meeting-" target="_blank">is getting roughed up</a> in the days leading up to the company's annual shareholder meeting this week as risk related to his historic $11 billion environmental liability in Ecuador continues to increase. The judgment has now been confirmed unanimously by Ecuador's Supreme Court while Canada's Supreme Court has ruled the affected communities can try to seize some of the company's $15 billion worth of assets to pay for a clean-up.<br /><br />(For background, see <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38980-Chevron-CEO-Faces-Pressure-Cooker-Over-Ecuador-Climate-Change-at-Shareholder-Meeting-" target="_blank">this press release</a>.)<br /><br />In all, 18 consecutive appellate judges in Ecuador and Canada have rejected Chevron's arguments and ruled in favor of indigenous and farmer villagers from the Amazon who first brought suit in 1993. Chevron's global game of forum shopping is running out of steam -- the company is facing a true <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38590-In-2016-Chevron-Faces-Potential-Litigation-Catastrophe-Over-Ecuador-Pollution-Liability" target="_blank">litigation catastrophe</a> in Canada -- and Watson no doubt will be called out by shareholders at the meeting for his abhorrent and irresponsible mistreatment of indigenous groups in the Amazon.<br /><br />The annual meeting, at company headquarters in San Ramon, will be highlighted by a face-to-face showdown between Watson and renowned Ecuadorian indigenous leader Humberto Piaguaje. Piaguaje, a Secoya elder, has traveled from his jungle home to attend the meeting. He is being hosted by Amazon Watch, a U.S.-based environmental group that is organizing <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/" target="_blank">a major protest</a>&nbsp;outside during the meeting.<br /><br />Watson and Chevron's Board will be on the hot seat over a number of issues:<br /><br />**The company's Ecuador liability -- originally $9.5 billion -- is getting worse by the day as statutory interest in Canada (where the villagers are trying to enforce their judgment against Chevron's assets) has pushed up the amount to roughly $11 billion. Just last week, two top Chevron executives were forced to answer questions under oath in a deposition in Canada; a critical court hearing is scheduled for September that has the chance of knocking out all of the oil giant's defenses.<br /><br />**Under Watson's leadership, Chevron is flailing not only over the Ecuador issue but over its core business. The company recently reported its first quarterly loss in 13 years; revenue is down 75%; and climate change threatens to leave shareholders with billions of dollars of "stranded assets" as the world moves away from fossil fuels.<br /><br />**A major Chevron shareholder, Newground Social Investment, has filed a resolution that asserts that Watson's management team "has mishandled a number of issues in ways that significantly increase both risks and costs to shareholders. The most pressing of these issues is the ongoing legal effort by communities in Ecuador to enforce a $9.5 billion Ecuadorian judgment for oil pollution." The resolution follows <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2012/0611-us-congresswoman-seeks-probe-of-chevron" target="_blank">a complaint to the SEC</a> by a U.S. Congresswoman that suggests the company is trying to downplay its Ecuador liability. Newground also&nbsp;<a href="https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/93410/000121465916011732/n523160px14a6g.pdf" target="_blank">published a letter on the SEC website</a> calling for shareholders to vote for the resolution.<br /><br />**It is increasingly clear that Chevron is responsible for one of the world's most dire humanitarian catastrophes in Ecuador. <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/cancer-summary.pdf" target="_blank">Numerous independent studies</a> confirm that cancer rates in the region where Chevron operated have skyrocketed; thousands of indigenous peoples and farmers have died of cancer and other oil-related diseases. Yet at great cost, Watson continues <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35294-Chevron-Using-60-Law-Firms-and-2-000-Legal-Personnel-To-Evade-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability-Company-Reports" target="_blank">to pay 2,000 lawyers from 60 law firms</a> to fight some of the most vulnerable people on the planet.<br /><br />In the press release put out by Amazon Watch, Piaguaje said<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>Our leaders plan to confront Mr. Watson with judgments from multiple courts mandating that the company pay its pollution bill to the people of Ecuador. &nbsp;Mr. Watson needs to accept responsibility for Chevron's environmental crimes in Ecuador, apologize to the company's victims, and abide by court orders that compensation be paid. Until he abides by the rule of law, Mr. Watson and Chevron's Board members will be considered by us to fugitives from justice subject to arrest for crimes against humanity under principles of universal jurisdiction.</i></blockquote>Well said, Humberto. Perhaps you should consider making a citizen's arrest of Watson at the meeting.<br /><br />In previous shareholder meetings, Watson has suffered a series of biting rebukes over the Ecuador liability. One resolution critical of Watson's mishandling of the case received a whopping 38% support from shareholders.<br /><br />In addition, in 2011 several of Chevron's institutional shareholders with more than $580 billion in assets under management sent Watson a letter urging settlement of the Ecuador case. Amazon Watch also sent <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/assets/files/2014-chevrons-threat-to-open-society.pdf" target="_blank">a letter to Chevron signed by 43 corporate accountability and human rights</a> groups blasting the company for trying to silence its critics.<br /><br />Chevron's shareholders should use the annual meeting to re-assess whether the conflicted Watson -- who made $22 million in compensation last year from a Board that he controls -- has the vision to fully grasp what it means to serve shareholder interests.<br /><br /><div style="border: 0px; color: #666666; font-family: inherit; font-size: 13px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 10px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></div>http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2016/05/with-assets-under-threat-chevron-ceo.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Admin)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-2886413083332712932Tue, 05 Apr 2016 15:42:00 +00002016-04-05T18:05:34.855-04:00Chevron Reeling? Oil Giant Abandons Key Claim In Ecuador Pollution CaseChevron is reeling again in the Ecuador pollution case. The company's plan to evade paying for a court-ordered clean-up of the billions of gallons of toxic waste it dumped in the Amazon rainforest -- decimating indigenous groups -- seems to be faltering like never before.<br /><br />After suffering defeats before 18 separate appellate judges, Chevron quietly abandoned&nbsp;<a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38654-Chevron-Violates-Canada-Supreme-Court-Order-By-Trying-to-Derail-Ecuador-Pollution-Judgment-Lawyer-Says" target="_blank">its last major claim</a> in Ecuador to challenge the $10 billion environmental liability imposed on the company by Ecuador's Supreme Court in 2013.<br /><br />Chevron's decision to sit on its hands at such a critical juncture severely damages its prospects in Canada, where the affected communities are targeting company assets to pay for a clean up of their ancestral lands. (<a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38268-Chevron-Facing-Major-New-Difficulties-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Case-After-Losing-Before-Canada-Supreme-Court" target="_blank">Here is background</a>&nbsp;on Chevron's increasing legal difficulties in Canada; here is an explanation of the company's&nbsp;<a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/02/donziger-to-wall-street-journal-real.html" target="_blank">jurisdictional shell game</a>.)<br /><br />Chevron abandoned its "fraud" allegations in Ecuador by letting the statute of limitation lapse on a key claim under the country's Collusion Prosecution Act (CPA). The move is a flagrant illustration of how the company's evidence has collapsed in recent months. Ignoring the CPA claim all but nullifies Chevron's international arbitration action against Ecuador's government, where the company cynically has been trying to stick taxpayers in Ecuador with its enormous clean-up tab.<br /><br />Chevron's decision follows a series of devastating courtroom setbacks.<br /><br />The company's star witness, Alberto Guerra, recently admitted to accepting bribes and then lying under oath after being paid $2 million (see <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/chevrons-star-witness-admits-to-lying-in-the-amazon-pollution-case" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/10/27/yes-i-lied-vindicating-villagers-star-chevron-witness-busted-perjury" target="_blank">here</a>) by the company. Some of the Chevron funds were handed over to Guerra as&nbsp;<a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35563-Chevron-Offered-Suitcase-Full-of-Cash-to-Former-Ecuador-Judge-Guerra-In-Exchange-for-Testimony" target="_blank">cash out of suitcase</a> by company lawyers <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35563-Chevron-Offered-Suitcase-Full-of-Cash-to-Former-Ecuador-Judge-Guerra-In-Exchange-for-Testimony" target="_blank">Andres Rivero</a> and Yohi Ackerman.<br /><br />The company's&nbsp;<a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/37943-Chevron-s-Main-Defense-Unraveling-in-Ecuador-Pollution-Case-Says-New-Forensic-Report-" target="_blank">forensic evidence</a>&nbsp;regarding the supposed "ghostwriting" of the trial court decision also has fallen apart; a new report proved the judge wrote the judgment by saving it 484 times on his office computer. Chevron is also facing negative fallout from a <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2015/0408-the-chevron-tapes" target="_blank">whistleblower video</a> showing its scientists plotting to hide pollution evidence from the Ecuador court.<br /><br />Caught committing fraud, Chevron paid an estimated $2 billion to <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35294-Chevron-Using-60-Law-Firms-and-2-000-Legal-Personnel-To-Evade-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability-Company-Reports" target="_blank">dozens of law firms</a> to try to turn the tables on the very people it poisoned by manufacturing false evidence using paid stooges like Guerra. Chevron's strategy is designed to shroud the company's crimes and wrongdoing in a fog so thick that the financial risk can be hidden from shareholders, artificially propping up the company's stock price. In the meantime, Chevron's notoriously passive Board of Directors (with CEO John Watson as Chairman) sits on its hands while villagers suffer and die.<br /><br />This disastrous corporate strategy, designed and funded by Watson and Chevron General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate, is now in full backfire mode.<br /><br />The mind-blowing story behind Chevron's latest retreat is in this <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38825-In-Key-Setback-Chevron-Abandons-Last-Legitimate-Legal-Claim-in-Ecuador-Against-10B-Pollution-Judgment" target="_blank">press release</a>&nbsp;issued by the Amazon Defense Coalition. The ADC represents the 80 impoverished indigenous and farmer communities in Ecuador who obtained the court judgment. Another <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38590-In-2016-Chevron-Faces-Potential-Litigation-Catastrophe-Over-Ecuador-Pollution-Liability" target="_blank">press release</a> explains how Chevron is facing a potential "litigation catastrophe" in the Ecuador case.<br /><br />Three layers of courts in Chevron's preferred forum of Ecuador found that the oil giant deliberately dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste into the rainforest, causing an <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/cancer-summary.pdf" target="_blank">outbreak of cancer</a> that has killed or threatens to kill thousands. (For a summary of the overwhelming evidence against Chevron, see <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-01-evidence-summary.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>.)<br /><br />In another sign of its bad faith, Chevron stripped its assets from Ecuador in 2007 after insisting that the trial take place in the South American nation. Once Ecuador's Supreme Court in 2013 affirmed the final judgment, there was no way to force Chevron to pay up without targeting company assets in other countries, which the villagers are doing in Canada and Brazil.<br /><br />Chevron's latest decision to give up the CPA claim "is an example of the company bailing out of any court where it knows its incredibly weak evidence will not carry the day," said Luis Yanza, a leader of the affected communities and <a href="http://www.goldmanprize.org/recipient/pablo-fajardo-mendoza-luis-yanza/" target="_blank">a Goldman Prize winner</a>.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><h3 id="title" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 1.5em !important; line-height: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></h3>http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2016/04/chevron-reeling-oil-giant-abandons-key.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Admin)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-202283430856392845Thu, 24 Mar 2016 15:48:00 +00002016-04-15T11:41:46.667-04:00Alec Baldwin Helps Expose Chevron's $10 Billion Ecuador Pollution DisasterActor and journalist Alec Baldwin has used his popular podcast "Here's The Thing" to interview human rights attorney <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/" target="_blank">Steven Donziger</a> about Chevron's pollution disaster in Ecuador's rainforest.<br /><br />The interview, broadcast on National Public Radio's outlet in New York, is&nbsp;<a href="http://www.wnyc.org/story/htt-steven-donziger/" target="_blank">here</a>.<br /><br />Donziger, who for two decades has helped Ecuador indigenous and farmer communities win a historic $10 billion environmental judgment against Chevron, used the interview to explain the ongoing environmental devastation, high cancer rates, and <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/cancer-summary.pdf" target="_blank">public health crisis</a> caused by the oil major's decision to discharge billions of gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon rainforest. Chevron operated in Ecuador under the Texaco brand from 1964 to 1992.<br /><br />Three layers of courts in Ecuador -- the country where Chevron insisted the trial be held -- have found the company guilty. Chevron admitted that it abandoned an estimated 1,000 unlined toxic waste pits in the Amazon that continue to contaminate soils, groundwater, and rivers. Ecuador's Supreme Court unanimously confirmed the judgment against Chevron in 2013.<br /><br />The affected communities are trying seize Chevron assets in Canada and other countries to force the company to comply with the judgment. Chevron stripped its assets from Ecuador in 2007 in anticipation of losing the case. The Canadian Supreme Court last year unanimously denied Chevron's attempt to block the asset collection action, leading to <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38268-Chevron-Facing-Major-New-Difficulties-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Case-After-Losing-Before-Canada-Supreme-Court" target="_blank">major new difficulties</a>&nbsp;for the company.<br /><br />Just recently, Amazon Watch exposed&nbsp;a <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2015/0408-the-chevron-tapes" target="_blank">devastating whistleblower video</a> showing Chevron technicians trying to hide the company's pollution from Ecuador's court. Here is a <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-01-evidence-summary.pdf" target="_blank">summary of the overwhelming evidence</a> against Chevron; a <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.mx/2015/12/media-outlets-chevron-polluted-crap-out.html" target="_blank">summary of the independent media coverage</a> documenting Chevron's wrongdoing; and a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGG1nIwxNhs" target="_blank">60 Minutes segment</a>&nbsp;on the case.<br /><br />Baldwin's podcast is enormously popular and often reaches millions of listeners. In recent months, he has interviewed people as diverse as actors Sarah Jessica Parker and Dustin Hoffman, Comedian Amy Schumer, Doctors Without Borders President Joanne Lui, and environmental activist Antonia Juhasz.<br /><br /><br />http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2016/03/alec-baldwin-helps-expose-chevrons-10.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Admin)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-4978430248420456913Tue, 02 Feb 2016 16:04:00 +00002016-02-02T11:04:01.530-05:00Chevron At War With Canada Supreme Court; Company Also Faces Accusations of Terrorism and Tax EvasionAs Chevron faces&nbsp;<a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38590-In-2016-Chevron-Faces-Potential-Litigation-Catastrophe-Over-Ecuador-Pollution-Liability" target="_blank">a potential litigation catastrophe</a> over its $10 billion pollution liability in Ecuador, we have decided to publish a news summary from the front lines of the historic battle by indigenous communities to hold the company accountable for its "Amazon Chernobyl" disaster.<br /><br />The summary will chronicle examples of Chevron's illicit behavior and sub-standard business practices in Ecuador and elsewhere -- including, most recently, the shocking news that the company <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2015-10-26-chevron-israeli-terrorism.pdf" target="_blank">is being sued for making payments to Saddam Hussein's private slush fund</a>.<br /><br />We understand that we might have a space problem given the ample material related to Chevron's unethical litigation practices, payments to witnesses, and other fraudulent shenanigans taking place under the regime of current CEO John Watson (annual compensation: $25 million) and his sidekick, Chevron General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate. But we will try.<br /><br />Here is our first installment of <i>The&nbsp;Chevron Chronicles</i>:<br /><br /><b>Chevron violating Canada Supreme Court decision</b>: Chevron's arrogance and the moral bankruptcy of its "perpetual litigation" strategy under Watson's leadership is now <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38654-Chevron-Violates-Canada-Supreme-Court-Order-By-Trying-to-Derail-Ecuador-Pollution-Judgment-Lawyer-Says" target="_blank">on full display in Canada</a>. The villagers last week&nbsp;<a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38654-Chevron-Violates-Canada-Supreme-Court-Order-By-Trying-to-Derail-Ecuador-Pollution-Judgment-Lawyer-Says" target="_blank">demonstrated</a>&nbsp;in a new legal filing that Chevron yet again is defying a <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ecuadorians-can-sue-chevron-in-canada-supreme-court-rules/article26225413/" target="_blank">Canada Supreme Court order</a> granting them jurisdiction to try to seize company assets to pay for their $10 billion judgment. Despite the Supreme Court order, Chevron <i>for the fourth time</i> has filed legal papers to nullify jurisdiction. &nbsp;The company now faces the nullification of its defenses given that it already litigated them (and lost) in Ecuador, where it insisted the trial be held. For background, see <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38654-Chevron-Violates-Canada-Supreme-Court-Order-By-Trying-to-Derail-Ecuador-Pollution-Judgment-Lawyer-Says" target="_blank">here</a>; for the Canada Supreme Court decision against Chevron, see <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2015-09-04-chevron-v-yaiguaje-canada-decision.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>.<br /><br /><b>Chevron is now 0-18 among appellate judges in Canada and Ecuador</b>: As further proof that Chevron views courts as little more than pawns in a larger strategy to win by might what it can't win by merit, the company has now lost before&nbsp;<i>all 18 appellate judges</i> in Canada and Ecuador who have heard the case. Using some of the <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35294-Chevron-Using-60-Law-Firms-and-2-000-Legal-Personnel-To-Evade-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability-Company-Reports" target="_blank">60 law firms and 2,000 lawyers</a> Chevron has retained to fight the villagers, the company is still trying to re-litigate many of the same issues (including jurisdiction) already decided by the 18 appellate judges. As <a href="http://business.financialpost.com/legal-post/meet-alan-lenczner-the-man-fighting-for-ecuadoran-villagers-in-their-canadian-case-against-chevron" target="_blank">Alan Lenczner</a>, the Canadian lawyer for the villagers, said in his <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2016-01-20-factum-of-the-respondents-plaintiffs.pdf" target="_blank">latest filing</a>: "Deep pockets against the resources of indigenous people in the Ecuadorian Amazon and repeated, interminable delay until 'hell freezes over' are Chevron's weapons." Chevron's desperation in Canada is so palpable that the company <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38524-Chevron-Using-Convicted-Felons-to-Try-to-Block-9-5-Billion-Ecuador-Pollution-Judgment" target="_blank">enlisted the notorious convicted felon Conrad Black</a> to serve as a spokesman for its cause.<br /><br /><b>Chevron charged with providing material support to terrorists</b>: Chevron's propensity to put profits in front of people in Ecuador -- which ended up&nbsp;<a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/cancer-summary.pdf" target="_blank">causing numerous deaths from cancer</a> -- are just the tip of the iceberg. Several <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2015-10-26-chevron-israeli-terrorism.pdf" target="_blank">victims of terrorism sued Chevron</a> in California last October for financing a Saddam Hussein slush fund that was used by the Iraqi government to reward the families of suicide bombers targeting Israeli civilians. Chevron already <a href="https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2007/2007-230.htm" target="_blank">paid a $30 million fine to the U.S. government</a> for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in Iraq. <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2015-10-26-chevron-israeli-terrorism.pdf" target="_blank">The latest civil lawsuit</a> alleges: "Due, in part, to Chevron's substantial assistance, Saddam Hussein had the means to finance and direct over twenty separate acts of violent terrorist attacks inflicting death, disfigurement, and lasting psychological trauma and pain upon plaintiffs, eighteen U.S. nationals and over 300 foreign nationals then living in Israel."<br /><br /><b>Chevron's fraud in Ecuador proven by whistleblower video</b>: The <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2015/0408-the-chevron-tapes" target="_blank">explosive Chevron whistleblower video</a> that shows company scientists trying to defraud Ecuador's courts continues to gain traction. &nbsp;The video has now been viewed more than 2 million times on the Internet and does more than anything to illustrate how the devious company uses obfuscation to hide the truth about its toxic legacy. &nbsp;Combined with the <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38421-Chevron-s-Star-Witness-in-Retaliatory-RICO-Case-Recants-Accusations-Against-Ecuadorians-and-Their-Counsel" target="_blank">stunning admission by the company's star witness that he lied in open court</a>, Chevron now faces a major uphill battle in Canada even under the best of circumstances.<br /><br /><b>Chevron faces allegations of tax evasion in Australia and fraud in Tennessee</b>: In Australia-- where Chevron is the largest foreign investor -- a <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2016-itf-chevron-report.pdf" target="_blank">stunning new report</a> details how how the company has become a tax cheat extraordinaire. &nbsp;Chevron has been <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2014-12-04-australian-fairfax-article.pdf" target="_blank">ripping off the Australian government</a> by stashing its earnings in a subsidiary in Delaware and using other paper financial transactions to drain profits out of the country to reduce its tax payments. As business columnist Michael West wrote, "Secretive oil major Chevron Corp has taken the art of tax avoidance to its ultimate form thanks to a scheme so aggressive that it goes beyond merely reducing exposure to income tax, but rather, has been designed to make a profit from the Australian Tax Office."<br /><br />Separately, the <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2016-01-19-tennessee-article.pdf" target="_blank">Attorney General of Tennessee sued Chevron</a> for fraudulently siphoning $250 million from a state environmental clean-up fund. A <a href="http://truecostofchevron.com/2009-alternative-annual-report.pdf" target="_blank">2009 report</a> from award-winning journalist Antonia Juhasz documented Chevron's environmental problems in dozens of countries around the world<br /><br />Of course, an oil company like Chevron does not run into trouble with the law so frequently unless it is management's policy to see what it can get away with. As it is doing in Canada to evade paying the Ecuador pollution judgment, Chevron is playing a cynical game with courts and regulators. If this was a fair world, Chevron's executives would face prison for their horrific acts.<br /><br />Instead, for being the Dick Cheney-esque mastermind behind this subterfuge,&nbsp;<a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2012/04/chevron-lawyer-hew-pate-earned-78.html" target="_blank">Chevron's General Counsel Pate reaps millions</a> of dollars per year in compensation while the company's victims around the world suffer illness and death. Most of Chevron's Board puts up with Watson and Pate by turning a blind eye to these repeated acts of wrongdoing.<br /><br />Judges and regulators need to connect the dots and take notice of the full range of Chevron's wrongdoing around the world. Only then will they not fall prey to the company's cynical and manipulative <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/02/donziger-to-wall-street-journal-real.html" target="_blank">jurisdictional shell game</a>.<br /><br />Courts also must reprimand Chevron like any other abusive litigant trying to use its superior resources to evade its moral and legal responsibilities to those it has harmed.<br /><br /><br /><br />http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2016/02/chevron-at-war-with-canada-supreme.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Admin)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-1735708411232885195Tue, 05 Jan 2016 17:44:00 +00002016-01-05T17:51:02.710-05:00Here Are Five Reasons Why 2016 Could Spell Disaster for Chevron's Ecuador Strategy The year 2016 is shaping up to be particularly dreadful for Chevron in the Ecuador pollution case despite massive expenditures by the company -- estimated to be $2 billion and rising -- to pay dozens of law firms to try to derail the litigation.<br /><br />Chevron and its CEO John Watson now face potentially catastrophic difficulties given critical setbacks in 2015 suffered by the oil giant both in and out of the courtroom. That's the word from a <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38590-In-2016-Chevron-Faces-Potential-Litigation-Catastrophe-Over-Ecuador-Pollution-Liability" target="_blank">devastating new press release</a> about Chevron's declining prospects put out by the villagers.<br /><br />Here are the five main reasons (although there are many others) that explain why Chevron and Watson are moving closer to being forced to pay the full amount of the $10 billion environmental judgment in Ecuador:<br /><br /><ul><li>The oil giant faces a "litigation catastrophe" in Canada due to a <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38268-Chevron-Facing-Major-New-Difficulties-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Case-After-Losing-Before-Canada-Supreme-Court" target="_blank">blockbuster 7-0 decision by the country's Supreme Court</a>&nbsp;that issued in 2015. The decision rejected all of Chevron's jurisdictional arguments and gives the green light to the villagers to seize company assets to pay for their clean-up. Chevron has $15 billion of assets in Canada.<br /><br /></li><li>A <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2013-11-12-supreme-court-ecuador-decision-english.pdf" target="_blank">unanimous 5-0 decision</a> in favor of the villagers by Ecuador's Supreme Court also makes the Ecuador judgment enforceable against Chevron assets in dozens of countries around the world, posing huge risk to company shareholders.<br /><br /></li><li>Chevron must deal with the negative fallout from <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/10/27/yes-i-lied-vindicating-villagers-star-chevron-witness-busted-perjury" target="_blank">the complete collapse of its star "racketeering" witness</a>, Alberto Guerra. Guerra admitted to lying on the stand after being paid $2 million by Chevron and coached for 53 consecutive days by company lawyers; he is also the company's most important witness in the Canada enforcement action.<br /><br /></li><li>Chevron also must overcome highly embarrassing and rock solid&nbsp;<a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2015/0408-the-chevron-tapes" target="_blank">video proof</a> that company scientists tried to defraud Ecuador's courts by hiding massive oil pollution during judicially-supervised field inspections. The videos were disclosed by a company whistleblower.<br /><br /></li><li>A stunning new <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/37188-New-Study-Confirms-Chevron-Caused-Widespread-Pollution-and-Health-Problems-in-Ecuador-Validating-Historic-Court-Judgment" target="_blank">independent evidentiary report</a>&nbsp;by a team of prominent American scientists yet again validates the overwhelming scientific proof that Chevron dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste into the rainforest, decimating indigenous groups and farmer communities.<br /></li></ul>Paul Paz y Miño, a director with the environmental group Amazon Watch, had this to say about Chevron's prospects:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">All told, 2015 was a disastrous year for Chevron in the Ecuador pollution case and 2016 might be even more challenging for the company as it tries to dig out of its ever-deeper hole. Make no mistake about it, Chevron is now moving backwards in its abusive campaign to evade the Ecuador judgment despite spending massive sums of shareholder money on an unethical, illegal, devious, and ultimately futile jurisdictional shell game.</blockquote><a href="http://stevendonziger.com/" target="_blank">Steven Donziger</a>, the longtime U.S. legal advisor to the affected communities and a target of a <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/33885-Chevron-Using-Espionage-Against-Lawyers-Who-Won-18-Billion-Verdict-In-Ecuador-" target="_blank">desperate company espionage campaign</a>, criticized CEO Watson for "marching the company so far out onto a limb it appears there is no longer a viable path to turn back without Watson himself losing face and possibly his job." Donziger said it was clear the company has no coherent exit strategy with Watson at the helm.<br /><br />That might explain why Chevron under Watson's misguided leadership refuses to cut bait and deal with the obvious risk its reckless scorched-earth strategy has created. The company's Ecuador liability grows larger by the day due to statutory interest while Watson seems to have little clue on how to reverse course. As usual, Chevron's notoriously callow Board of Directors with Watson as "Chairman" does nothing.<br /><br />Aside from the problems mentioned above, Chevron also faces a shareholder revolt over the pollution liability; new computer forensic evidence from noted authority J. Christopher Racich that puts the lie to the company's claim the Ecuador judgment was "ghostwritten"; increasing protests by environmental groups over the company's human rights abuses in Ecuador and elsewhere; and evidence that Chevron lawyer Andres Rivero tried to bribe the Ecuador trial judge.<br /><br />In addition, Chevron General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate has been hit with accusations of market manipulation over the Ecuador judgment. That was after a private panel of three arbitrators rejected Chevron's primary defense to the environmental claims. Also in 2015, Chevron's main outside law firm (Gibson Dunn) on the Ecuador case again was blasted by a federal judge for its ethical lapses.<br /><br />To put it mildly, 2015 was a very bad year for Chevron on the Ecuador pollution case despite the use of 60 law firms and 2,000 lawyers to try to shake the rainforest villagers. Making a bad situation even worse: cratering oil prices have shaved billions of dollars off of Chevron's book value.<br /><br />Again, all of the juicy details of Chevron's Ecuador setbacks are in the latest&nbsp;<a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38590-In-2016-Chevron-Faces-Potential-Litigation-Catastrophe-Over-Ecuador-Pollution-Liability" target="_blank">press release</a>.<br /><br />Note to Chevron's Board: figure out a way to get Watson and his team under control or Chevron shareholders will face even greater wrath from the Ecuador judgment in 2016.<br />http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2016/01/here-are-5-reasons-why-2016-could-spell.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Admin)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-4678725064690438182Mon, 21 Dec 2015 16:38:00 +00002015-12-23T09:56:24.214-05:00Market Manipulation? Chevron General Counsel Pate Has Some Explaining to Do to the SECThe forum shopping by Chevron's General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate in Gibraltar to evade the company's $10 billion Ecuador liability seems to have backfired. We understand the desperation: largely under Pate's watch Chevron has spent an estimated $2 billion on&nbsp;<a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/35294-Chevron-Using-60-Law-Firms-and-2-000-Legal-Personnel-To-Evade-Ecuador-Environmental-Liability-Company-Reports" target="_blank">2,000 lawyers and 60 law firms</a>&nbsp;in a futile attempt to fend off impoverished villagers who in 2013 won a historic environmental judgment against the company.<br /><br />Now, Chevron might have to explain Pate's apparent market manipulation to the Securities and Exchange Commission.<br /><br />Unable to shake the villagers, Pate&nbsp;<a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/36169-Chevron-General-Counsel-R-Hewitt-Pate-Misled-Reporters-About-Arbitration-Ruling-In-Ecuador-Case" target="_blank">resorted again</a> to publishing a misleading press release to try to cover up his recent courtroom setbacks that now threaten company assets. These setbacks include <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/chevrons-star-witness-admits-to-lying-in-the-amazon-pollution-case" target="_blank">the recent meltdown of the company's star witness</a>&nbsp;-- he admitted lying on the stand -- and a <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38268-Chevron-Facing-Major-New-Difficulties-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Case-After-Losing-Before-Canada-Supreme-Court" target="_blank">unanimous decision against Chevron by Canada's Supreme Court</a>&nbsp;allowing the villagers to try to seize the oil giant's assets to force compliance with their judgment.<br /><br />The question arises: is Pate putting out misleading press releases to try to save his own skin in the face of increasing angst over the Ecuador liability from Chevron's Board? Or does Chevron's Board actually sanction what appears to be market manipulation from its General Counsel?<br /><br />The latest misleading&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20151216005223/en/Supreme-Court-Gibraltar-Rules-Donziger-Offshore-Company" target="_blank">Chevron press release</a>&nbsp;--&nbsp;issued last week with a juicy quote from Pate himself -- had the following headline: <i>Supreme Court of Gibraltar Rules Against Donziger Offshore Company; Awards Chevron $28 Million</i>.<br /><br />According to thestreet.com, <a href="http://www.thestreet.com/story/13400307/1/chevron-cvx-stock-climbs-following-positive-court-judgement-in-ecuador.html" target="_blank">Chevron's stock price bumped up</a>&nbsp;with the publication of the Chevron release. Chevron's misleading interpretation of the default judgment was largely parroted<a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/12/more-dishonest-reporting-on-ecuador.html" target="_blank">&nbsp;by Paul Barrett of Businessweek</a>&nbsp;and other pro-business journalists.<br /><br />Let's break it down and assess whether the latest Chevron press release violates the holy grail of securities law which requires a company to be completely honest about any material issue in all of its public statements.<br /><br />First, we note that the "Supreme Court" of Gibraltar as described by Pate is not really a Supreme Court. The Gibraltar court for purposes of this case consisted of one solitary trial judge. This judge was required by law to rule in favor of Chevron because the case was not defended.<br /><br />Second, Gibraltar is not a real country. It is a tiny British protectorate of only 30,000 citizens that occupies 2.6 square miles of territory connected to Spain on the southern side of the Iberian Peninsula. A relic of the British Empire, Gibraltar is so small the country's main road doubles as an airport landing strip.<br /><br />Nevertheless, the elected leader of Gibraltar refers to himself as "Prime Minister" while the local trial court is called a "Supreme Court". Pate thought he would pull a fast one and make it seem like the ruling was a considered decision by several top-ranking appellate justices from a real country; it was decidedly not.<br /><br />As the villagers pointed out in a <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38572-Chevron-General-Counsel-Hew-Pate-Misleads-Financial-Markets-Over-Default-Judgment-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">devastatingly funny press release</a>, the entire territory of Gibraltar is less than half the size the rural town of Ocala in North Florida. We suspect justice is probably more fair in Ocala than in Gibraltar, but that's a story for another day.<br /><br />Third, the so-called default "award" is utterly worthless to Chevron. It came against an entity called Amazon Recovery Limited, or ARL. ARL has no money and will never have money. The villagers set up ARL in 2012 to collect the proceeds of their historic judgment that Chevron refuses to pay, despite orders that it do so from the Supreme Court in Ecuador. Given Chevron's targeting of ARL, the villagers long ago said they would no longer use it for its intended purpose nor waste their limited resources defending it.<br /><br />The purpose of creating ARL in Gibraltar was to ensure that no official in Ecuador's government or in Chevron could interfere with the proceeds before a clean-up could take place. This is understandable given Chevron's <a href="https://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2011-02-28-Declaration-of-Juan-Pablo-Saenz.pdf" target="_blank">history of trying to sabotage and corrupt</a> the proceedings in Ecuador. That plan as envisioned by the villagers obviously did not work because of Chevron's latest subterfuge.<br /><br />Luis Yanza, an Ecuadorian community leader and a director of ARL, explained it does not matter. "We are too smart to get sucked in by Chevron's abusive attempts to tie up our lawyers in irrelevant proceedings which the company uses to distract attention from its legal obligations to those it harmed," Yanza said.<br /><br />Good for you, Mr. Yanza.<br /><br />Fourth, Pate predictably used the latest press release to try to link the default judgment to U.S. human rights lawyer <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/" target="_blank">Steven Donziger</a>. Unable to explain away the <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-01-evidence-summary.pdf" target="_blank">billions of gallons it dumped into Ecuador's Amazon</a> -- oil waste <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/12/media-outlets-chevron-polluted-crap-out.html" target="_blank">confirmed by dozens of independent journalists</a> -- Chevron years ago launched a demonization campaign against Donziger and his clients to distract attention from its own crimes and fraud. Donziger, <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/sludge-match-chevron-legal-battle-ecuador-steven-donziger-20140828" target="_blank">called a "warhorse lawyer" by Rolling Stone</a>, has advised the villagers for two decades and has admirably stood tall in the face of Chevron's attacks.<br /><br />(For more on Donziger's point of view, see these <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-08-15-counterclaims.pdf" target="_blank">counterclaims</a> he filed against Chevron outlining the company's long history of illegal behavior in Ecuador.)<br /><br />Again, we understand Pate's frustration. Donziger works alone out of his apartment in Manhattan while Pate pays dozens of law firms to try to destroy the Ecuador case by targeting him. Everything Pate has done to try to try to bring down Donziger, including an&nbsp;<a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/33885-Chevron-Using-Espionage-Against-Lawyers-Who-Won-18-Billion-Verdict-In-Ecuador-" target="_blank">open-ended espionage</a>&nbsp;campaign and launching what is probably the most expensive retaliation campaign in U.S. history, has come up short. Pate initially had Chevron sue Donziger personally for $60 billion dropping all damages claims out of fear a jury would rule against the company.<br /><br />As the villagers point out, Donziger was not a director of the company against which Chevron has its illusory default judgment in Gibraltar. Nor did he participate in a single meeting. The directors were Yanza, two other villagers, a representative from the internationally respected accounting firm Grant Thornton, and a British barrister. So why other than market manipulation would Pate call it a "Donziger offshore company" in the headline?<br /><br />In the latest&nbsp;<a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38572-Chevron-General-Counsel-Hew-Pate-Misleads-Financial-Markets-Over-Default-Judgment-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">press release</a>&nbsp;from the villagers, Donziger described Pate's strategy better than we ever could:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Pate forum shopped the world to extract a judgment from an irrelevant jurisdiction that commands no respect on the global stage in a case that was understandably and quite properly never defended on the merits because it does not matter. The Gibraltar judgment has zero value to Chevron other than as a public relations stunt to distract attention from its growing financial risk due to advances in enforcement actions targeting company assets in Canada and elsewhere.</blockquote>Donziger added there was element of racism to Chevron's attempts to discount the ability of the villagers to govern their own affairs:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Pate and his colleagues in Chevron act as if no indigenous person from Ecuador's rainforest has either volition or intelligence. They seem to believe the villagers are simply dumb people manipulated by outsiders. I understand this mentality because that's how Texaco viewed the Ecuadorian people when it deliberately destroyed their lands and waterways. Today, that approach reeks of racism. It is also based on patently false assumptions as anybody can see by simply talking to the internationally recognized community leaders who have battled Chevron so successfully for years.</blockquote>Chevron shareholders whose dividends are under threat might note that the $28 million default judgment was to obtain partial reimbursement for the exorbitant fees Pate paid to the law firms the company has used to attack the villagers and Donziger. Bills submitted in Gibraltar showed some of these lawyers were charging more than $1,200 per hour to carry out the campaign.<br /><br />Pate, <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2012/04/chevron-lawyer-hew-pate-earned-78.html" target="_blank">who earned almost $8 million</a> from Chevron the year he lost the Ecuador case, has gotten in trouble before by trying to make Chevron's litigation position appear stronger than it is. In 2013, Pate put out <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/36169-Chevron-General-Counsel-R-Hewitt-Pate-Misled-Reporters-About-Arbitration-Ruling-In-Ecuador-Case" target="_blank">another press release falsely trumpeting</a> a decision from a private international arbitration as a "victory" in the Ecuador litigation when in fact it was nothing of the sort.<br /><br />In 2012 and 2013, Pate also had no answer for detailed reports submitted to the SEC showing Chevron was deliberately misleading shareholders about its growing &nbsp;risk in Ecuador. Those rather harrowing reports of company malfeasance, which prompted <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/news-and-multimedia/2013/0529-19-billion-ecuadorian-lawsuit-dominates-chevron-agm" target="_blank">a shareholder revolt against CEO John Watson</a> at the 2013 Chevron annual meeting, can be read <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2013-05-chevron-disclosure-report.pdf" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-april-chevrons-failure-to-disclose.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>.<br /><br />The SEC failed to catch the rather obvious market manipulation before the 2008 financial meltdown. Maybe the agency will do something this time to protect Chevron's shareholders and the financial markets from the obvious misconduct of Pate and other top-level managers.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/12/market-manipulation-chevron-general.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Admin)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-3278463626587355609Wed, 16 Dec 2015 19:55:00 +00002015-12-18T11:36:48.429-05:00The Real Facts About Gibraltar: Chevron's Lies Boosted by Paul Barrett of BusinessweekChevron's illusory $28 million judgment for legal fees against an empty shell investment vehicle owned by Ecuadorian villagers in the tiny protectorate of Gibraltar is worthless -- despite the attempt by Bloomberg's Paul Barrett to build it up with his <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/11/businessweeks-paul-barrett-ignores.html" target="_blank">incomplete and dishonest reporting</a>.<br /><br />After largely ignoring the <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38268-Chevron-Facing-Major-New-Difficulties-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Case-After-Losing-Before-Canada-Supreme-Court" target="_blank">stunning legal setbacks to Chevron</a> in recent months in Canada and elsewhere regarding the $9.5 billion Ecuador pollution judgment against the company, Barrett this week posted a story about how Chevron won a default judgment in Gibraltar. &nbsp;Gibraltar has only 30,000 people and four trial judges.<br /><br />Nobody defended the company because the entire litigation is part of Chevron's nefarious effort to entrap the villagers in meaningless cases in irrelevant jurisdictions. Chevron wants to suck the villagers into doing anything except what really matters -- which is seizing company assets to pay for a long-awaited clean-up of lands where the oil major dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste.<br /><br />In a misleading press release parroted by Barrett on the Businessweek website, Chevron General Counsel R. Hewitt Pate claimed the "Supreme Court" in Gibraltar ruled in favor of the company. What Pate didn't tell Chevron shareholders is that the Supreme Court of Gibraltar is actually a trial court with fewer judges than most small towns in America.<br /><br />Pate tried to suggest in his press release that it was the highest appeals court in the country, which it decidedly is not. Pate of course never wants to talk about how <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/12/media-outlets-chevron-polluted-crap-out.html" target="_blank">Chevron polluted the crap of Ecuador</a> and then tried to <a href="https://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2011-02-28-Declaration-of-Juan-Pablo-Saenz.pdf" target="_blank">corrupt and sabotage the trial</a> where it was held accountable.<br /><br />The dormant investment vehicle targeted by Chevron was used years ago by the company's victims in Ecuador to fund the prosecution of their environmental claims against the oil giant. The villagers also planned to use it to aggregate proceeds of the judgment that would come with selling off Chevron's seized assets. The idea was to distribute the proceeds for an environmental clean-up in Ecuador without the Ecuadorian government interfering with the process.<br /><br />The villagers chose not to divert their limited resources from Canada, where they have a real chance of collecting the entirety of their historic judgment. Chevron has $15 billion worth of assets in the country and the <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38268-Chevron-Facing-Major-New-Difficulties-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Case-After-Losing-Before-Canada-Supreme-Court" target="_blank">Supreme Court recently gave the green light</a> for the villagers to go after them, dealing a devastating blow to Pate's blocking strategy.<br /><br />"We must be disciplined and focus on seizing Chevron assets to force the company to comply with orders from the courts in Ecuador where the company insisted the trial be held," said Luis Yanza, an Ecuadorian community leader. "We will not fall into the trap of defending against frivolous cases that Chevron chooses to initiate in irrelevant jurisdictions."<br /><br />With the help of corporate sympathizers in the journalism world like Barrett, Chevron's beleaguered management team is using the Gibraltar ruling to try to present a false picture of "progress" in the litigation. That is all part of an attempt by Pate and Chevron CEO John Watson to keep company shareholders and the financial markets from belching too loudly about the company's growing risk in Ecuador.<br /><br />Chevron is <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38268-Chevron-Facing-Major-New-Difficulties-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Case-After-Losing-Before-Canada-Supreme-Court" target="_blank">on its heels in Canada</a>&nbsp;and in the United States. Chevron's star witness in its retaliatory "racketeering" case in the U.S., Alberto Guerra, recently <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38421-Chevron-s-Star-Witness-in-Retaliatory-RICO-Case-Recants-Accusations-Against-Ecuadorians-and-Their-Counsel" target="_blank">admitted lying on the stand</a> to try to frame New York lawyer Steven Donziger in a bribery scheme in Ecuador. In apparent violation of federal law, Chevron had paid the witness $2 million for his testimony. Chevron lawyers coached Guerra for 53 consecutive days before allowing him to present his false testimony.<br /><br />A concrete example of Barrett's dishonesty is how he used only a small portion of a written statement given him by <a href="http://www.goldmanprize.org/recipient/pablo-fajardo-mendoza-luis-yanza/" target="_blank">Yanza</a>, the internationally renowned Goldman Prize winner. The statement explained why the Gibraltar judgment has no impact on the case.<br /><br />Here is Yanza's full statement as sent to Barrett:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">Chevron's default judgment is against a dormant investment vehicle. We believe this judgment has zero value other than as a public relations stunt designed by Chevron to project the false appearance of 'progress' in a litigation where the company recently suffered multiple setbacks, including an admission by its star witness that he testified untruthfully in the RICO case and a decision by Canada's Supreme Court allowing our communities to try to seize company assets</blockquote><blockquote class="tr_bq">While after two decades of litigation Chevron has yet to pay even one dollar to the thousands of people in our country that it harmed, it is no small irony that Chevron rushed to a courthouse in a far-flung jurisdiction to try to collect millions of dollars in fees that it has paid to its army of lawyers. Rather than engage in a multi-jurisdictional campaign of evasion, Chevron's management team would better serve company shareholders by complying with the Ecuador judgment so that the humanitarian crisis afflicting our communities can be addressed immediately.</blockquote>This is the only part of Yanza's statement that Barrett quotes in his story:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">While after two decades of litigation Chevron has yet to pay even one dollar to the thousands of people in our country that it harmed, it is not small irony that Chevron rushed to a courthouse in a far-flung jurisdiction to try to collect millions of dollars in fees that it has paid to its army of lawyers.&nbsp;</blockquote>Journalists of course have a right to use only parts of statements in their stories. But Barrett's long history of uncritical service to Chevron's narrative understandably makes us skeptical of his motives. In an obvious <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2014/07/businessweeks-paul-barrett-becoming.html" target="_blank">conflict of interest</a>, Barrett last year testified in favor of Chevron before the U.S. Congress while reporting on the case.<br /><br />Barrett's latest article repeats yet again a false thematic narrative almost always found embedded in his reporting. Barrett suggests that Chevron's retaliatory racketeering case against Donziger and his clients in the U.S. somehow amounts to an "exoneration" of the company's environmental crimes and fraud. Nothing could be further from the truth.<br /><br />The reality is that <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2014-chevrons-mockery-of-justice.pdf" target="_blank">Chevron made a mockery of justice</a> in the RICO proceeding. The trial judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, arrogantly disparaged the affected communities and excluded any evidence of Chevron's toxic dumping in Ecuador. He also refused to seat a jury and then accepted the paid-for testimony of Guerra, Chevron's discredited witness. The judge knew nothing of Ecuadorian law or procedure and <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2014-chevrons-mockery-of-justice.pdf" target="_blank">let Chevron abuse the process throughout</a>.<br /><br />Kaplan also <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/37478-U-S-Judge-Kaplan-Held-Investments-In-Chevron-When-He-Ruled-for-Company-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Dispute" target="_blank">failed to disclose his own investments in Chevron</a> when he presided over the case. The entire proceeding reeked of racism and was reverse-engineered to favor the oil company.<br /><br />Ultimately, the RICO judgment -- like the default judgment is Gibraltar -- does nothing to mitigate Chevron's risk from it pollution in Ecuador. But with Barrett promoting these judgments with a fundamentally false narrative, they do allow Chevron yet another bite at the apple on the public relations front.<br /><br />That false hope is a major factor that allows Chevron's management team to spend millions on its army of lawyers to keep the litigation going even after it lost the case in its preferred forum.<br /><br />Good work, Paul. As we have said before, you could make a lot more money by joining Chevron's public relations department.<br /><br /><i>(For more background on Barrett's distortions of fact and made-up scenes in his book about the Ecuador case, see this <a href="http://stevendonziger.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Ltr-to-Barret-et-al-20140909-2-1-1.pdf" target="_blank">"notice of defamation" letter</a>&nbsp;sent to him and his publisher. &nbsp;For a summary of the overwhelming evidence against Chevron in Ecuador, see <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-01-evidence-summary.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>.)</i><br /><br />http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/12/more-dishonest-reporting-on-ecuador.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Admin)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-5080323525659327142Wed, 16 Dec 2015 18:25:00 +00002015-12-16T13:25:34.458-05:00Media Outlets: Chevron Polluted the Crap Out of Ecuador's Amazon RainforestAccording to numerous independent media outlets, Chevron indeed polluted the crap out of Ecuador's Amazon region.<br /><br />We have long known that three layers of courts and eight appellate judges in Ecuador unanimously confirmed Chevron's responsibility for causing the extensive oil pollution found in the affected area. Less known is the array of respected journalists who independently have confirmed the evidence against Chevron by observing the damage with the naked eye.<br /><br />These journalists include Scott Pelley of CBS News; Frank Bajak of the Associated Press; Simon Romero of the New York Times; Juan Forero of the Washington Post; and Patrick Radden Keefe of The New Yorker, among others.<br /><br />Chevron, in what has to be one of the all-time great examples of a corporation sticking its head in the sand, continues to deny it has caused a major pollution problem in Ecuador. While those indigenous and farmer communities affected continue to suffer from <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/cancer-summary.pdf" target="_blank">high cancer rates</a>, the company has refused to pay the $9.5 billion environmental judgment needed for a clean-up.<br /><br />Chevron's position that there is "no problema" in Ecuador has no credibility.<br /><br />Here is a brief summary, culled from the archives of from several major media outlets, of how Chevron impacted and continues to harm the environment in the area where it operated (under the Texaco brand) from 1964 to 1992.<br /><br /><b><i>CBS News Anchor Scott Pelley, on 60 Minutes in 2009, at an abandoned Chevron waste pit:</i></b><br /><br />"Well, it rains here in the rainforest all the time, so there's water pouring out of [the waste pit] now. And if you smell the water, you can clearly smell the oil pollution in it. Runs right down the ravine... and right down into the stream, not 50 yards that way."<br /><br />"Waste pits like those left behind by Chevron are supposed to be temporary and isolated from fresh water but in Ecuador one pit 60 Minutes saw has been there for 25 years and we found it's actually designed to overflow into streams."<br /><br /><b><i>Clifford Krauss and Simon Romero, writing in The New York Times in 2009:</i></b><br /><br />Romero visited Chevron's waste pits and found that "black gunk from the pits seeps to the topsoil here and in dozens of other spots in Ecuador's Northeastern jungle."<br /><br />"Evidence of [ChevronTexaco's] contamination is unavoidable at well sites near Lago Agrio and other towns in the region."<br /><br />"Some pools of waste dug by Texaco combining noxious drilling mud and crude oil still lie exposed under the sun, seeping into nearby water systems."<br /><br /><b><i>Columnist Bob Herbert, writing in The New York Times in 2010: &nbsp;</i></b><br /><br />"What's not in dispute is that Texaco operated more than 300 oil wells for the better part of three decades in a vast swath of Ecuador's northern Amazon region... Much of that area has been horribly polluted."<br /><br /><b><i>Juan Forero, writing for the Washington Post, 2009:</i></b><br /><br />"After a walk along a forest trail, [the guide] stopped at a pool that had been used by Texaco and poked a long stick into the black sludge. Waste also dripped out through a drainage pipe and ran down to a creek below."<br /><br />"Chevron acknowledges that Texaco used unlined waste pits."<br /><br /><b><i>Patrick Radden Keefe, The New Yorker, 2013:</i></b><br /><br />A guide for Keefe dug up "a fistful of black mud and held it so that the sunlight caught the telltale blue-orange tint of petroleum. At one fetid pit... he stepped gingerly onto the surface of the pool, where the solid matter in the produced water had congealed into a tarlike crust that was sturdy enough to support him. &nbsp;Smiling a little, [the guide] shifted his weight from one foot to the other, until the whole surface began to undulate beneath him. He looked like a kid on a waterbed."<br /><br />"[The guide] led us down a steep ravine to a creek. In the gauzy light filtering through the canopy, the water, which was only a foot deep, looked crystalline. [The guide] drove a stick into the creek bed and churned the mud until the water grew clouded by sediment... I skimmed my hand across the surface of the creek. My palm was coated in an acrid film."<br /><br /><b><i>Jim Wyss, writing for the Miami Herald, in 2011:</i></b><br /><br />The guide "plunges his auger into the ground. Within a few inches the dirt gives off the pungent odor of petroleum. Within a few feet the dirt glistens with oil residue. When a few handfuls of the soil are dropped into a bucket of water, a thick oil slick coats the surface."<br /><br /><b><i>Frank Bajak, Associated Press, 2008:</i></b><br /><br />In town of Lago Agrio, the epicenter of the damage, Bajak notes that "when the sun beats particularly hot... the roads sweat petroleum."<br /><br />The guide "plunges a surgical glove-sheathed hand into the muck of one waste pit. He pulls up rancid, oil-coated leaves from surrounding saplings. A pipe juts out of another pit, dripping what looks like crystalline water that reeks of petroleum hydrocarbons."<br /><br />Bajak notes "a fresh spill... dark and gooey. Bigger spills have smothered crops, choked birds, killed cattle."<br /><br /><b><i>Valerie Pacheco, AFP, 2011:</i></b><br /><br />"[Lead named plaintiff Maria Aguinda] skeptically eyes the ongoing cleanup of a marsh just meters from her house, where workers dressed in oil-stained yellow overalls dredge thick black ooze into suction pipes."<br /><br />"A strong petroleum smell permeates Rumipampa, home to nine families, some of whom complain of headaches."<br /><br /><b><i>Tom Levitt, The Ecologist, 2012:</i></b><br /><br />"Billions of gallons of toxic waste from oil drilling in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s has polluted streams and rivers in the province of Sucumbios, used by indigenous communities for drinking, bathing, and fishing."<br /><br /><b><i>James North, The Nation, 2015:</i></b><br /><br />"We set off into the rain forest. Oil pipelines of various sizes run alongside the roads; in one spot, you can count dozens of them, like strands of spaghetti. [The guide] started at Aguarico 2, a well that has been closed for years... The oil residue is still floating to the surface. &nbsp;Then [we] marched down a steep slope to a stream, where you could see and smell the oil as well."<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/12/media-outlets-chevron-polluted-crap-out.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Admin)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-7981363259489062276Tue, 01 Dec 2015 16:45:00 +00002015-12-02T08:39:19.082-05:00Chevron Enlists Convicted Felon Conrad Black to Help Its Defense in CanadaWith evidence against it in the Ecuador pollution case mounting, Chevron has turned to none other than convicted felon and former media titan Conrad Black to help it try to block indigenous villagers from enforcing their environmental judgment in Canada.<br /><br />A few days ago Black published an <a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/conrad-black-keep-canadas-courts-out-of-the-battle-between-ecuador-and-chevron" target="_blank">op-ed</a>&nbsp;article in Canada that repeated Chevron's talking points and viciously attacked the rainforest villagers and their counsel. The article appeared in the newspaper Black founded in 1998, The National Post. In 2007, Black <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Black" target="_blank">was convicted on fraud charges</a> in Chicago related to the sale of his various newspapers, which at one point comprised one of the largest English-language media empires in the world. <br /><br />A jury found that Black misled investors and looted company funds to support a lavish lifestyle that included luxury homes in several cities around the world. He was incarcerated in a federal prison before being deported to Canada and barred from entering the United States for 30 years.<br /><br /><i>(For more on Black's checkered background, see <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/02/black200702" target="_blank">this story</a> in Vanity Fair. For a summary of the overwhelming evidence against Chevron in Ecuador, see <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-01-evidence-summary.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>. For evidence of the high cancer rates caused by Chevron's pollution, see <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/cancer-summary.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>. For a whistleblower video exposing Chevron's fraud in Ecuador, see <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2015/0408-the-chevron-tapes" target="_blank">here</a>. For a sworn affidavit outlining some of Chevron's efforts to sabotage the Ecuador trial, see <a href="https://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2011-02-28-Declaration-of-Juan-Pablo-Saenz.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>.)</i><br /><br />Chevron is up in arms that it might finally be held accountable in Canada and forced to pay the $9.5 billion Ecuador judgment after 22 years of playing a <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/02/donziger-to-wall-street-journal-real.html" target="_blank">jurisdictional shell game</a>. Canada's Supreme Court <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/05/business/international/court-says-chevron-can-be-pursued-in-canada-over-ecuadorean-damage.html?_r=0" target="_blank">ruled unanimously in September</a> that the Ecuadorians could try to enforce their judgment against company assets to force compliance with the court order in Ecuador.<br /><br />The Canada Supreme Court decision has <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38268-Chevron-Facing-Major-New-Difficulties-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Case-After-Losing-Before-Canada-Supreme-Court" target="_blank">created major new difficulties</a> for Chevron's avowed strategy to "fight until hell freezes over" and not pay the judgment it owes to those it harmed. After reviewing more than 100 technical evidentiary reports, Ecuador's Supreme Court in 2013 affirmed a lower court judgment that found Chevron had deliberately and systematically dumped billions of gallons of oil waste into streams and rivers relied on by local inhabitants for their drinking water. <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/cancer-summary.pdf" target="_blank">Cancer rates in the area have skyrocketed</a>&nbsp;and untold numbers of local citizens have succumbed to the disease.<br /><br />The Canada Supreme Court decision is typical in cases where a scofflaw debtor tries to evade a court judgment by selling off its assets in one country and moving them to another. That's what Chevron did in Ecuador after it fought for years to venue the trial there and accepted jurisdiction.<br /><br />When a defendant loses a case and runs from the law, the judgment creditor always has a right to ask another country's courts to enforce their judgment against the defendant's assets. But according to Chevron and its new surrogate Mr. Black, an exception to this rule should be made for the long-suffering Ecuadorian villagers.<br /><br />According to Black, the villagers should be blocked completely from Canada's courts.<br /><br />Of course, if this were a commercial enforcement case involving one of Black's businesses that was getting stiffed in another country, he would be the first to cheer the Canada Supreme Court decision. He might consider the rank double standard he is proposing for the impoverished villagers who for decades have been victimized by Chevron's gross misconduct, as the U.S. show 60 Minutes documented <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGG1nIwxNhs" target="_blank">in this segment</a>.<br /><br />More interesting to us is how Chevron seems to consider its options so limited in Canada that it turns to a convicted felon to argue its position in the press. Conrad Black likely was not the first person Chevron approached to write an op-ed. But he likely was the only one who agreed to do it.<br /><br />Chevron recently got major egg on its face after the <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/the-law-page/canadian-bar-association-feels-backlash-over-chevron-intervention/article20869596/" target="_blank">membership of Canadian Bar Association rejected an attempt</a> by the company to intervene in its internal affairs and enlist the organization to file a "friend of the court" brief before the Canada Supreme Court. When Chevron's secret maneuver became public, the company was forced to withdraw the brief after it had been filed. Oops.<br /><br />The enlisting of Black is not the only sign of Chevron's jitters in Canada.<br /><br />The company's star witness, the Ecuadorian citizen Alberto Guerra, <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/chevrons-star-witness-admits-to-lying-in-the-amazon-pollution-case" target="_blank">recently admitted lying on the stand</a> in a farcical U.S. "racketeering" trial used by Chevron to try to taint the Ecuador judgment. In violation of federal law, Chevron paid Guerra $2 million in cash and benefits for his testimony. The company later conceded its lawyers coached Guerra for 53 days before he was allowed to take the stand. (The <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2014-chevrons-mockery-of-justice.pdf" target="_blank">highly flawed decision</a>&nbsp;in that case is on appeal.)<br /><br />Without the discredited Guerra available to testify in Canada, Chevron has no real defense. Which is why Chevron and Mr. Black argue that Canada's courts should not take up the case at all.<br /><br />For years, it has been obvious that Chevron will do virtually anything to evade paying the Ecuador judgment. That includes threatening judges in Ecuador, drowning the court with duplicative motions, presenting false testimony, paying fact witnesses, trying to bribe Ecuador's government to quash the legal case, obstructing justice, and filing retaliatory lawsuits against dozens of people who worked to hold it accountable. (For more background, see <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-donziger/chevrons-amazon-chernobyl_b_7435926.html" target="_blank">this article</a> in the Huffington Post.)<br /><br />Chevron's thinking that using a convicted felon will help improve the company's tattered image in Canada suggests a profound disconnect from reality. But it is depressingly consistent with the company's past behavior.<br /><br />In 2009, Chevron <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/han-shan/chevrons-man-in-ecuador-f_b_339461.html" target="_blank">used convicted drug felon Wayne Hansen</a> in a failed attempt to entrap the Ecuador trial judge in a manufactured bribery scheme. Chevron investigators later spirited Hanson out of California to Peru to avoid a subpoena where he would have been forced to answer questions about the company's sordid attempt to undermine a trial it knew it was losing on the merits.<br /><br />If Mr. Black wants to publicly debate us on Chevron's crimes and fraud in Ecuador without a company apparatchik whispering in his ear, we would be happy to make one of our advocates available.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/12/chevron-enlists-convicted-felon-conrad.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Admin)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-1159695548712982208Mon, 16 Nov 2015 17:14:00 +00002015-11-17T22:34:16.674-05:00Chevron Paying Income Taxes and Salary of Corrupt Witness Who Committed Perjury in Ecuador CaseWithout public disclosure, Chevron has re-upped its contract to pay $144,000 annually to former Ecuadorian judge Alberto Guerra after he admitted perjuring himself in a federal court during the company's RICO trial. The perjury happened after Chevron lawyers at the outside law firm Gibson Dunn coached Guerra on his false testimony for 53 consecutive days.<br /><br />We have no choice but to call this what it is: a witness bribery scheme orchestrated by a major American oil company. Chevron's aim is to evade paying for the clean-up of what could be the world's worst oil disaster, caused deliberately on its watch when it operated in Ecuador (under the Texaco brand) from 1964 to 1992.<br /><br />The discredited Guerra – who has admitted that he accepted bribes when he was a judge in Ecuador – has become a central figure in Chevron's campaign to evade paying the $9.5 billion environmental judgment in the South American nation. Chevron was found to have deliberately dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste into the streams and rivers of the rainforest. The dumping continues to decimate indigenous groups and has caused an <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/cancer-summary.pdf" target="_blank">outbreak of cancer</a>, according to <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-01-evidence-summary.pdf" target="_blank">the findings of three layers of courts</a> in Chevron's preferred forum of Ecuador.<br /><br />The Chevron payments to Guerra seem to have earned the company and its <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/03/chevron-law-firm-gibson-dunn-blasted-by.html" target="_blank">ethically-challenged lawyers at Gibson Dunn</a> a fraud and bribery complaint to the U.S. Department of Justice. Amazon Watch, an environmental group that has been fighting to hold Chevron accountable, <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38468-Chevron-Agrees-to-Pay-Huge-Salary-and-Income-Taxes-of-Key-Witness-Who-Perjured-Himself-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">said it will lodge a formal complaint</a> over the witness payments and falsification of evidence.<br /><br />Paul Paz y Miño, a director at Amazon Watch, said:<br /><blockquote><i>It is unethical, illegal, and utterly shocking that Chevron continues to pay huge sums to a completely discredited witness who has admitted to repeatedly lying and accepting bribes to testify falsely in court. This arrangement is worthy of a criminal investigation and we are asking the Department of Justice to look into it. We consider Chevron to have engaged in witness bribery.</i></blockquote><a href="http://the%20underlying%20judgment%20against%20chevron%20was%20confirmed%20by%20ecuador%27s%20supreme%20court%20in%20a%20unanimous%20decision%20that%20meticulously%20documented%20contamination%20at%20hundreds%20of%20former%20chevron%20well%20sites./" target="_blank">Luis Yanza</a>, a winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize and the longtime leader of the rainforest communities affected by Chevron's pollution, said in reference to Guerra:<br /><blockquote><i>Chevron and its lawyers gave a key witness cash out of a suitcase to falsify evidence to taint the Ecuador judgment so the company does not have to pay for the clean-up of oil pollution that is causing grave harm to thousands of people. This is just one example of the company's plan to threaten judges and sabotage the proceedings in Ecuador.</i></blockquote>Guerra stunned the legal community after he admitted during a recent international arbitration proceeding that he lied on the stand during the company's retaliatory civil "racketeering" (or RICO) case targeting the lawyers for the villagers who won the historic judgment. Chevron made a <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2014-chevrons-mockery-of-justice.pdf" target="_blank">mockery of justice</a> in that case after the judge (Lewis A. Kaplan) displayed intense personal animus toward the villagers while <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/37478-U-S-Judge-Kaplan-Held-Investments-In-Chevron-When-He-Ruled-for-Company-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Dispute" target="_blank">hiding his investments</a> in Chevron despite calls for his recusal over bias.<br /><br />(As background, a federal appellate court in New York unanimously reversed Kaplan in 2011 when he earned the <a href="https://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2011-amicus-16-legal-experts.pdf" target="_blank">scorn of the international legal community</a> by trying to block enforcement of the Ecuador judgment anywhere in the world. <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2014-chevrons-mockery-of-justice.pdf" target="_blank">Without a jury or a fair trial</a>, Kaplan then tried to overrule the final decision of Ecuador's Supreme Court by refusing to consider any evidence of Chevron's contamination and claiming the Ecuador decision was the product of racketeering. In the meantime, the villagers recently <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38268-Chevron-Facing-Major-New-Difficulties-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Case-After-Losing-Before-Canada-Supreme-Court" target="_blank">won a unanimous decision</a> from Canada's Supreme Court authorizing them to seize Chevron assets to enforce their judgment. Here is <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-01-evidence-summary.pdf" target="_blank">a summary</a> of the overwhelming evidence against Chevron.)<br /><br />Guerra also recanted key portions of his testimony in the RICO case claiming that the Ecuadorian trial judgment was ghostwritten by the plaintiffs, according to reports from <a href="http://www.courthousenews.com/CNSNEWS/Story/Index/83594" target="_blank">Courthouse News</a> and <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/chevrons-star-witness-admits-to-lying-in-the-amazon-pollution-case" target="_blank">Vice</a>. These developments emerged recently when transcripts from the arbitration finally were released after Chevron, in yet another violation of the ethical rules, tried to keep them under wraps for months.<br /><br />The transcripts show Guerra admitting that Chevron extended his contract for another year. Guerra does no work for Chevron other than make himself available to testify on the Ecuador case – a fact that many observers believe violates federal law and the ethical rules, as this <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2013-09-12-motion-for-terminating-sanctions.pdf" target="_blank">legal brief</a> and this <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2013-07-26-chemerinsky-declaration.pdf" target="_blank">opinion</a> from a prominent ethics expert explain.<br /><br />Yet Chevron continues to make up its own rules. In 2012, company operatives Andres Rivero and Yohi Ackerman traveled to Ecuador and paid Guerra $38,000 in cash out of a suitcase for his "cooperation" with the company. That included a promise by Guerra to try to bribe the trial judge with a down payment of $1 million with the goal of getting him to recant his decision. "Money talks but gold screams," Guerra said to the Chevron operatives at the time.<br /><br />Chevron then inked a two-year deal providing Guerra a $144,000 annual salary, full payment of all income taxes, payment for the fees of three personal lawyers, health care, a car, and immigration services. The immigration services have allowed several family members to become residents of the United States after some had been living here illegally for years.<br /><br />We also believe that Guerra and his team lied to the Department of Homeland Security to legalize the status of himself and his family members. By not disclosing to the U.S. government the many crimes Guerra had committed in Ecuador and later in the United States, Guerra (and Chevron) arguably violated U.S. law and committed a felony. Our investigation of this aspect of the Chevron-Guerra subterfuge continues.<br /><br />All told, we conservatively estimate Chevron's paid benefits to Guerra amount to at least $250,000 annually. The amount rises considerably when one takes into account benefits paid to Guerra's three adult children and their families. Not bad for a man who testified he had $146 in his bank account when he struck the deal with Chevron.<br /><br />Even with these extraordinary payments, Guerra seems to have very little skill as a Chevron stooge. Like most liars, he gets twisted into knots during cross-examination. Eric Bloom, a lawyer for Ecuador's government, shredded Guerra on the witness stand during the arbitration proceeding. (See these <a href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/10/26/transcriptDay4.pdf" target="_blank">transcripts</a> for the evidence. For more background on Guerra's admissions as well as the larger implosion of Chevron's RICO case, see this <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38468-Chevron-Agrees-to-Pay-Huge-Salary-and-Income-Taxes-of-Key-Witness-Who-Perjured-Himself-In-Ecuador-Pollution-Case" target="_blank">press release</a>.)<br /><br />Chevron lawyers Randy Mastro and Avi Weitzman coached Guerra for several weeks before letting him testify. Guerra had been removed from the bench in Ecuador for misconduct and was facing criminal prosecution until Chevron agents spirited him out of the country. Mastro also personally negotiated Chevron's payments to Guerra at precisely the same time his team was drafting a sworn affidavit for Guerra to sign that by Guerra's own admissions contained multiple lies.<br /><br />Guerra admitted in the arbitration that he lied when he told Judge Kaplan he had been offered a "bribe" from the plaintiffs to write the trial court judgment against Chevron. He also confessed that critically important shipping records had nothing to do with the Chevron case, contradicting his prior testimony. He confessed that there were no emails or documentary evidence that the trial court judgment had been drafted by the plaintiffs and then given to the judge on a flash drive, as he had told Judge Kaplan.<br /><br />The entire saga might expose Mastro and Weitzman to criminal prosecution, <a href="http://www.earthrights.org/blog/what-you-think-you-know-about-chevron-and-steven-donziger-wrong" target="_blank">according to respected environmental lawyer Marco Simons</a>.<br /><br />One of the main targets of Chevron's retaliation campaign, U.S. attorney Steven Donziger, has <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2015-11-05-motion-for-judicial-notice.pdf" target="_blank">filed the latest evidence</a> of Guerra's collapse before the federal appellate panel reviewing Judge Kaplan's flawed decision. Donziger also turned the tables on Chevron by <a href="http://www.csrwire.com/press_releases/38353-Villagers-Threaten-New-Lawsuit-Against-Chevron-In-U-S-Courts-Order-Company-to-Cease-Destruction-of-Documents" target="_blank">demanding the company cease the destruction of all documents</a> related to the dispute in anticipation of further litigation by the villagers over the company's worsening misconduct.<br /><br />The more Chevron fights, the more the company and General Counsel Pate seem to lose ground. Chevron's <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/02/donziger-to-wall-street-journal-real.html" target="_blank">jurisdictional shell game</a> is getting more exposed. The larger question is when Chevron's top leaders will be held accountable for the destruction of the Amazon and their own gross misconduct in evading court orders to clean up the damage.<br /><br />http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/11/chevron-paying-income-taxes-and-salary.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Admin)tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6152255172793149048.post-1792251420071090103Wed, 04 Nov 2015 22:28:00 +00002015-11-05T17:28:50.583-05:00Businessweek's Paul Barrett Ignores Spectacular Implosion of Chevron's RICO CaseBusinessweek reporter Paul Barrett is again taking Chevron's side in the Ecuador pollution litigation by failing to report on the spectacular implosion of the company's RICO case. Readers of Businessweek interested in the latest news on the litigation are getting shortchanged.<br /><br />We previously reported how Barrett generally frames his stories about the Ecuador litigation in a way that apologizes for Chevron's corruption and betrays a deep animus toward U.S. attorney Steven Donziger, the advisor to the affected rainforest communities that obtained a $9.5 billion judgment against the oil giant. Barrett adopted his flawed narrative in his thinly-sourced book on the case (called <i>Law of the Jungle),</i> which is largely an <i>ad hominem</i> attack against Donziger and is replete with factual errors and made-up scenes.<br /><br />This <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2014-09-09-letter-to-barret.pdf" target="_blank">"notice of defamation" letter</a> written by Donziger explains some of the details of Barrett's sloppy and unethical journalistic practices. Usually missing from Barrett's stories is that Ecuador's Supreme Court (in the country where Chevron insisted the trial be held) unanimously affirmed the liability against Chevron in a 222-page decision meticulously documenting extensive contamination at hundreds of former company well sites. (See <a href="http://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2012-01-evidence-summary.pdf" target="_blank">this summary</a> of the overwhelming evidence against Chevron and <a href="https://chevrontoxico.com/assets/docs/2011-02-28-Declaration-of-Juan-Pablo-Saenz.pdf" target="_blank">this affidavit</a> documenting some of the company's corruption.)<br /><br />Barrett is now refusing to report on explosive new evidence from a related arbitration proceeding that strongly suggests Chevron's retaliatory RICO case has imploded in spectacular fashion. Others are reporting this news fully, but not Barrett. (See <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2015/1026-game-over-chevrons-rico-case-spectacularly-implodes-as-corrupt-ex-judge-admits-to-making-it-up" target="_blank">this powerful analysis</a> from Amazon Watch, <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/chevrons-star-witness-admits-to-lying-in-the-amazon-pollution-case" target="_blank">this article</a> from Vice, and <a href="http://www.courthousenews.com/CNSNEWS/Story/Index/83594" target="_blank">this article</a> from Courthouse News.)<br /><br />Here are some recent developments that severely damage Chevron's litigation prospects but are ignored by Barrett:<br /><br /><ul><li>Chevron's main claim that the trial court judgment in Ecuador was "ghostwritten" by lawyers for the villagers has fallen apart. There was scant evidence of this other than the testimony from a corrupt and impoverished Ecuadorian witness (Alberto Guerra) paid $2 million by the oil company after having only $146 in his bank account; now Guerra admits under oath he lied on the stand during Chevron's RICO case about critical elements of his story.<br /></li><li>Barrett has completely underplayed evidence from a computer forensic examination requested by Chevron in the arbitration proceeding that found the Ecuador trial judge saved the Word file that became the judgment on his own computer more than 400 times. Guerra had claimed the judgment was given to the judge by the plaintiffs on a flash drive just before it was issued. This evidence has been presented to the appellate court that oversees Kaplan.</li><li>Barrett also ignored that Guerra testified in Kaplan's RICO proceeding that the Ecuador trial judge promised him 20 percent of an alleged $500,000 bribe. In his arbitral testimony, Guerra confessed it was a total lie. </li><li>Guerra claimed he played a key role in the so-called ghostwriting. But he admitted he lied before Kaplan by claiming he made two trips to Lago Agrio to work on the judgment; in fact, those trips had nothing to do with the Chevron case. Again, silence from Barrett.<br /></li><li>Guerra also conceded in his arbitral testimony that there is no evidence corroborating his allegations that the lawyers for the affected communities bribed the trial judge and wrote the judgment, which is Chevron's defense to actions to seize company assets to satisfy the Ecuador judgment. Guerra admitted he lied to Chevron to obtain more money from Chevron. "I lied there," he said. "I recognize it. I wasn't truthful." Again, nothing from Barrett.<br /></li></ul>In Canada, a trial to seize Chevron assets is proceeding. The villagers have filed a motion for summary judgment to knock out all of Chevron's defenses on the grounds they already were litigated and resolved by the court in Chevron's preferred forum of Ecuador. Barrett has yet to report on this development.<br /><br />We suspect Barrett's recent retreat into silence has much to do with the fact developments are turning against Chevron. The company's trumped-up "fraud" narrative is the central thrust of Barrett's book and his prior reporting. To report that his main narrative is unraveling would further damage Barrett's credibility and would not be in his commercial interest.<br /><br />Want to get a sense of what Businessweek's readers who rely on Barrett are missing? Read Eva Hershaw's account in <a href="https://news.vice.com/article/chevrons-star-witness-admits-to-lying-in-the-amazon-pollution-case" target="_blank">Vice News</a> in an article titled "Chevron's Star Witness Admits to Lying in the Amazon Pollution Case":<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">In testimony given before the international tribunal... Guerra has now admitted there is no evidence to corroborate allegations of a bribe or a ghostwritten judgment, and that large parts of his sworn testimony, used by Kaplan in the RICO case, were exaggerated and, in other cases, simply not true.</blockquote>Adam Klasfeld of Courthouse News <a href="http://www.courthousenews.com/CNSNEWS/Story/Index/83594" target="_blank">reported</a> that Guerra "repudiated much of his explosive testimony" and admitted to lying about a number of key facts. Marco Simons, an attorney with Earth Rights International, <a href="http://www.earthrights.org/blog/what-you-think-you-know-about-chevron-and-steven-donziger-wrong" target="_blank">suggested</a> that two Chevron lawyers, Randy Mastro and Avi Weitzman, might face criminal exposure for coaching Guerra for 53 days to present false testimony. (For more on how Chevron law firm Gibson Dunn has falsified evidence, see <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/03/chevron-law-firm-gibson-dunn-blasted-by.html" target="_blank">here</a>.)<br /><br />Chevron had no real answer for several days to these devastating setbacks. That's where Barrett stepped in to post a <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-29/chevron-oil-pollution-and-the-case-of-the-tainted-witness" target="_blank">short story</a> on the company's website that is nothing more than a tortured attempt to rehabilite the lying Guerra.<br /><br />Barrett might be technically correct to point out that Guerra has not recanted his testimony that a bribe occurred, but Guerra has admitted to being such a serial liar about everything else that nothing he claims can be taken seriously. That's especially true when there is no corroborating evidence left to back up the central feature of his story.<br /><br />Predictably, Chevron spokesperson Morgan Crinklaw has been pushing Barrett's latest defense of Guerra into social media as a surrogate statement for the company. Barrett's colleague Roger Parloff of Fortune -- himself silent about the unraveling of Chevron's "racketeering" case -- tweeted it. (For more on Parloff's own bias in favor of Chevron, see <a href="http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2012/09/dishonest-reporting-fortunes-roger.html" target="_blank">this blog</a> and <a href="http://amazonwatch.org/news/2014/0930-business-journalists-rush-to-rescue-chevron-from-its-ecuador-disaster" target="_blank">this analysis</a>.) And Barrett took the extraordinary step of contacting another reporter via Twitter to challenge her reporting contesting Chevron's narrative.<br /><br />Businessweek needs to assign a truly independent journalist to report this story. In the meantime, Barrett should consider joining Crinklaw in Chevron's public relations department. He could make a lot more money doing the same thing.<br /><br /><br /><br />http://thechevronpit.blogspot.com/2015/11/businessweeks-paul-barrett-ignores.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Admin)